Victory On The Potomac

A D VA N C E P R A I S E
“Locher’s chapter on Beirut reveals for the first time a true account of the cir-
cumstances of this tragedy and the crippling consequences of organizational
defects. Every joint officer must know and every American will want to under-
stand this pivotal history.”—Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, former Supreme Allied
Commander in Europe
“For twenty years as a Marine and nine more in the White House . . . I watched
with growing anguish the pointless loss of life caused by dysfunctional Penta-
gon decision making. The best tribute to Jim Locher’s role in passage of the
Goldwater-Nichols Act—so well recorded in Victory on the Potomac—lies in the
lives saved throughout future generations.”—Robert C. “Bud” McFarlane, Na-
tional Security Adviser to President Ronald Reagan
“Locher had a ringside seat at the most important change in the U.S. military
establishment since the  creation of the secretary of defense and Joint Chiefs
of Staff. His insights into the Goldwater-Nichols Act provide an unparalleled view
of a critical instance in history—one which contributed significantly to success
in the Gulf War!”—Gen. Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, former Army Chief of Staff
“. . . the first comprehensive account of the how and why of the historic
Goldwater-Nichols legislation. Uniquely, this important book offers the insight
of an individual who was there at the creation and served to bring it to life. This
is a classic work not to be missed.”—Sean O’Keefe, former Secretary of the Navy
“This volume is of immense historical interest; but it also has everything the
most demanding mystery reader could hope for: a plot with many twists; di-
verse, interesting, well defined characters; intrigue at the highest (and some-
times the lowest) levels; and a satisfying ending (though as the book suggests,
there is still much to do).”—William K. Brehm, former Assistant Secretary of
Defense
“Locher weaves contemporary events into a rich tapestry of insights on the

constitutional separation of powers, military history, legislative politics, and
civil-military relations. This authoritative account of how a good idea became
public law must be read by every military officer and student of government.”—
Michael B. Donley, former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
“. . . a masterful and exciting story, the stunning denouement of which was
passage of the long overdue  Goldwater-Nichols legislation—to the dismay
of those who had long opposed such measures and to the benefit of the United
States and the armed forces that serve it.”—Lt. Gen. John H. Cushman, Sr., former
Commander of I Corps Group in Korea
“Jim Locher gives us his thoroughly researched, well-thought-out, insider’s view

of the hard-fought struggle in Congress and the Pentagon to shift power from
the military departments to a Joint Chiefs chairman and a reinvigorated Joint
Staff under his control.”—Gen. W. Y. Smith, former Deputy Commander in Chief,
U.S. European Command
“Generations of historians will consider Jim Locher’s book the authoritative

record of one of the most important defense laws in the nation’s history. But
this important book speaks to a much broader audience of scholars, students,
and citizens. The book, showing Congress in one of its finest hours, provides a
much-needed counterpoise to the negative perspective of Capitol Hill held by
many citizens.”—Archie D. Barrett, senior House of Representatives staffer for
the Goldwater-Nichols Act
VICTORY ON THE POTOMAC
Military History logo

&M 
Ano.
UNI
VE
S
R
XA
SI
TE
TY
79
✩
✩
MI
S
IE
LI
ER
A
T
RY S
H I S T O RY
Texas A&M University Military History Series

Joseph G. Dawson III, General Editor
             :
Robert Doughty
Brian Linn
Craig Symonds
Robert Wooster
Victory
on the
Potomac
The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon
James R. Locher III
Foreword by Sen. Sam Nunn
Texas A&M University Press • College Station

Copyright ©  by James R. Locher III
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
First edition
The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements

of the American National Standard for Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z.-.
Binding materials have been chosen for durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in -Publication Data
Locher, James R., –

Victory on the Potomac : the Goldwater-Nichols act unifies the
Pentagon / James R. Locher, III ; foreword by Sen. Nunn.—st ed.
p. cm.—(Texas A&M University military history series ; 79)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
 --- (cloth: alk. paper)
. United States. Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act of —Legislative history. . United
States. Dept. of Defense—Reorganization—Legislative history.
. United States—Armed Forces—Reorganization—Legislative
history. I. Title. II. Series.
. 
.''—dc 
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations 

Foreword by Sen. Sam Nunn 
Acknowledgments 
List of Acronyms 
Prologue: Turf, Power, Service 
Part 1: The Fog of Defense Organization

. The Rise of Service Supremacists 
. Jones Breaks Ranks 
. The House Fires the First Shot 
. Texas Politics 
. Unfinished Business 
. Misfire in the Senate 
Part 2: Drawing Battle Lines
. Beirut 
. Scholars and Old Soldiers 
. Nichols Runs Tower’s Blockade 
. Crowe Makes Waves 
. Goldwater and Nunn Close Ranks 
. Weinberger Stonewalls 
. Naval Gunfire 
Part 3: Marshaling Forces
. McFarlane Outflanks the Pentagon 

. Trench Warfare 
. Playing the Media Card 
. Gathering of Eagles 
. Expedition into Hostile Territory 
viii Contents
Part 4: March to Victory
. Seizing the High Ground 

. Transition to the Offensive 
. The Packard Commission Reinforces 
. The Decisive Battle 
. Mopping-Up Operations 
. The Commander in Chief Approves 
Epilogue: Unified at Last 
Notes 
Index 
ILLUSTRATIONS
. Senators Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn 

. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, December,  
. Admiral William D. Leahy at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff,  
. President Harry S. Truman and General Dwight D. Eisenhower 
. General David C. Jones 
. Burned-out U.S. helicopter at Desert One 
. Members of the JCS meet in the Pentagon, November,  
. Major Arch Barrett next to his F- aircraft 
. General Edward “Shy” Meyer 
. “  ” 
. Admiral Tom Hayward and Sen. John Tower 
. Second Lieutenant William F. Nichols 
. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Cong. Bill Nichols 
. Defense Department Organizational Chart, July,  
. Senator John Tower and Jim Locher 
. “       ” 
. Defense bureaucratic warfare 
. General P. X. Kelley visiting the th Marine Amphibious Unit
in Beirut 
. Congressman Bill Nichols with Alabama Marines in Lebanon 
. A view of the destruction following the bombing of the battalion
landing team headquarters building 
. Senator Goldwater as a cadet captain,  
. Senators Goldwater and Nunn 
. “  -     -
, ,   . . .” 
. Defense Secretary Weinberger and President Reagan 
. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman 
. “,    ‒     .” 
. President Reagan announces the creation of the President’s
Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management 
. Paratroopers from the d Airborne Division 
. “    '  -?” 
. “what command problems?” 
. “      ?” 
. “     ' .” 
. Senators Strom Thurmond and Sam Nunn 
. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
June ,  
. Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird and Navy Secretary
John W. Warner 
. Senator Sam Nunn and Cong. Les Aspin 
. Senator Goldwater, Jim Locher, Barbara Brown, Jeff Smith,
and Senator Nunn 
. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Defense Secretary Richard
Cheney, Pres. George Bush, and Gen. Colin Powell 
x Illustrations
For Nor ma
FOREWORD
Passing the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act was one of Con-

gress’ finest hours in recent memory. The campaign to reform the Depart-
ment of Defense began on February , , when Gen. David Jones, USAF,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appealed to the House Armed Ser-
vices Committee for reform of the joint system. The long struggle to make
defense reorganization a reality—it took four years and  days, a period
longer than America’s involvement in World War II—involved many heroes:
Gen. Edward “Shy” Meyer, USA, later echoed General Jones’s reform call; Sen.
Barry Goldwater and Cong. Bill Nichols provided critical bipartisan leadership
for reform in Congress; and several congressional staffers, particularly Jim
Locher from the Senate Armed Services Committee and Arch Barrett from the
House Armed Services Committee, helped build the intellectual capital neces-
sary for Congress to overcome enormous opposition from the Pentagon and
the executive branch in passing this landmark legislation.
Victory on the Potomac masterfully tells this fascinating and historically im-
portant story. Jim Locher’s vivid account will make readers feel like their el-
bows are on the conference table watching the clash of giant personalities and
power politics. Jim’s involvement at every step enables him to accurately recre-
ate this legendary legislative story, which has made a deep imprint on America’s
military capability. Locher’s meticulous research and numerous interviews
permit him to relate events from all perspectives: Senate, House, White House,
National Security Council staff, five Pentagon components, presidential com-
mission, think tanks and universities, media, and the retired military com-
munity. Locher’s portrayal of the passage of Goldwater-Nichols will fascinate
anyone interested in how the machinery of American government works.
In formulating the Goldwater-Nichols Act, Congress thoroughly studied
defense reorganization. When work started, members knew little about the
arcane but critical issues of the structure and processes of the Free World’s
largest and most complex bureaucracy. When Barry Goldwater became chair-
man of the Senate Armed Services Committee in January, , he gave de-
fense reorganization his highest priority and adopted a genuinely bipartisan
approach, making me, the committee’s ranking Democrat, an equal partner.
Barry and I agreed to appoint Jim Locher as the senior reorganization staffer to
represent us both, and he led the team that helped Congress “get smart” on
this complex but critically important subject. Our committee studied military
operations as far back as the Spanish-American War for their organizational
xii Foreword
lessons. We examined forty years of debate on defense organization in search

of the best ideas. Our committee and its House counterpart also developed new
concepts, especially concerning unified warfighting commanders. A -page
study directed by Jim Locher for the Senate Armed Services Committee had a
tremendous impact on congressional thinking, as we passed Goldwater-Nichols
with the threat of a presidential veto.
The National Archives ranked the Goldwater-Nichols Act as the Senate
Armed Services Committee’s most important legislative achievement during
its first fifty years. The act addressed a huge problem—the inability of the mili-
tary services to operate effectively together as a joint team—and solved it. By
establishing a clear chain of command and focusing operational responsibility
in the warfighting commanders, Goldwater-Nichols made possible the remark-
able military successes of the s. I still take great satisfaction in my role in
helping pass the Goldwater-Nichols Act and believe it was one of my most signifi-
cant contributions to our national security.
The status quo in military matters is not acceptable, and at the beginning
of the twenty-first century, the need for a new look at defense organization is
increasingly apparent. Although the services now fight jointly, greater jointness
may now be required in how the department “organizes, trains, and equips”—
the title , U.S. Code, functions assigned to the separate services. The increased
power of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff enabled by Goldwater-Nichols
may need recalibrating to assure the ability of the secretary of defense and his
staff to effectively exercise civilian control of the military. Despite many efforts,
some of which I personally led, to address the fundamental roles and missions
of the services, the Department of Defense still looks much the same as it did at
the end of the Cold War. For those who believe that it is time for another
Goldwater-Nichols, Jim Locher’s fascinating account is must reading. Victory
on the Potomac reminds us that reorganizing defense is hard, but that it can be
done, that Congress must lead, and that the payoff is high.
Sen. Sam Nunn

Atlanta, Georgia
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
After each major event of the long campaign to produce the Goldwater-Nichols
Act, Sens. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn would implore me, “You must write
a book to record this important history. Keep great notes.” Such was the gen-
esis of Victory on the Potomac. I did keep great notes, which Chris Cowart, chief
clerk of the Senate Armed Services Committee, painstakingly organized before
the committee sent them to the National Archives.
In November, , as I began to consider this book, journalist and author
Doug Waller encouraged me, insisting that the act’s history was fascinating as
well as important. Doug’s valuable comments on initial drafts helped to point
me in the right direction. Bill Mogan advised me to attend Barnaby and Mary
Conrad’s Santa Barbara Writers Conference, which I did twice. Like a sponge, I
soaked up a tremendous amount of knowledge at those conferences, especially
during workshops led by Cork Millner.
Grants from the Smith Richardson Foundation and David and Lucile
Packard Foundation funded important research and interviews, enabling the
comprehensive telling of the Goldwater-Nichols story. General Shy Meyer, a
Smith Richardson board member, was instrumental in gaining approval of
my grant. The National Defense University Foundation, under Pres. Jim Dugar
and Executive Directors Tom Gallagher and Frank Eversole, administered both
grants and provided outstanding support. These grants permitted me to hire
Bridget Grimes as a research assistant. Bridget’s untiring efforts helped to en-
sure that this book was thorough, accurate, and filled with colorful detail.
Lieutenant General Dick Chilcoat, president of the National Defense Univer-
sity, also supported my research and designated me a distinguished visiting
fellow.
Ben Schemmer assisted me as my literary agent, mentor, teacher, editor,
counselor, critic, supporter, and friend. In each capacity, he gave generously
and contributed enormously to the book. Working with Ben, I learned about
the art of writing and much more. Ben also introduced me to Bill Kloman, a
first-rate copy editor. Bill copyedited the entire manuscript and showed me the
craft of word economy.
Members of the staff at Texas A&M University Press made all of the hurdles
of preparing the manuscript for publication less trying and provided sound
advice at every step. Dale Wilson, a freelancer who copyedited the manuscript
for the Press, meticulously reviewed the manuscript and helped to make it as
good as it could be.
xiv Acknowledgments
Many colleagues and friends took a genuine interest in this book. They
allowed me to interview them repeatedly, reviewed draft chapters, and provided
access to their personal papers. This list is headed by Arch Barrett, Dave Jones,
Bill Brehm, Bill Crowe, Mike Donley, Gerry Smith, Jeff Smith, Rick Finn, Arnold
Punaro, Chris Mellon, Kim Wincup, David Berteau, Barry Blechman, Ted
Crackel, Shy Meyer, Bud McFarlane, and Bernie Rogers. Their recollections
brought the story to life and provided important perspectives. I am indebted to
them for their contributions and generous support.
I also appreciated the friendship of Peggy and Bill Stelpflug, whom I met
during a research trip to Auburn University. Their son, Billy, died in the terror-
ist bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut in October, . Peggy and Bill
provided new insights on that tragedy, assisted my efforts to accurately tell the
Beirut story, and encouraged my work on this book.
Three prominent defense historians reviewed the book: Al Goldberg, his-
torian for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Walter Poole of the Joint His-
tory Office, and Mark Sherry of the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Their
advice and comments were invaluable. The review of the book’s narrative of
the Grenada invasion by Ronald Cole of the Joint History Office was also help-
ful. Al Goldberg and the Joint History Office also granted access to their inter-
views of former officials and officers.
I benefited from extensive access to government archives. Senators Nunn
and Strom Thurmond granted me permission to conduct research in the Sen-
ate Armed Services Committee files on the Goldwater-Nichols Act maintained
by the National Archives. Marie Dickinson, Chris Cowart, and Jay Thompson
of the committee staff aided my research, and Chuck Alsup provided summa-
ries from the committee’s executive sessions. Doc Cooke, director of adminis-
tration and management at the Pentagon, approved my access to files of the
secretary and deputy secretary of defense. Sandy Meagher and Brian Kenney
provided first-rate assistance in facilitating my examination of these archives.
Bernard Cavalcante and Judy Short of the Operational Archives Branch, Na-
val Historical Center, assisted my research in Navy Department files. Leo
Daugherty provided special help in the personal papers collections at the Ma-
rine Corps Historical Center, as did David Keough in the Manuscript Archives
of the U.S. Army Military History Institute.
Gaining information from the files of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was more
challenging. Admiral Denny Blair, then Joint Staff director, and Brig. Gen. David
Armstrong, USA (Ret.), director of joint history, helped start the process. Ed
McBride and his Joint Staff office and Cdr. Jeff Morris in the Office of the Secre-
tary of Defense worked hard to respond to my Freedom of Information Act
request.
Mike Donley and John Douglass, former National Security Council staff
members, facilitated early access to their files at the Ronald Reagan Library.
Acknowledgments xv
Eventually, the Defense Department sponsored my research there, helped gain

White House support, and obtained the required approvals from the State De-
partment, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Council. Doc
Cooke played the instrumental role at the Pentagon. Donna Dillon—aided by
Rod Soubers, Sherrie Fletcher, and Cate Sewell—superbly assisted me during
my four visits to the Reagan Library.
I also conducted extensive research in the Barry M. Goldwater Collection
at the Arizona Historical Foundation, and I am indebted to Patricia Etter, James
Allen, Paula Liken, and Sheila Brushes for their assistance. Dwayne Cox and
Bev Powers facilitated my research in the William F. Nichols Papers at the Au-
burn University Archives. Naomi Nelson directed research and provided mate-
rials from the Sam Nunn Archives at Emory University, and Kathryn Stollard,
Sheran Johle, Norma Hart, and Susan Eason did the same for the John G. Tower
Papers at Southwestern University. Arch Barrett, a true friend, conducted re-
search for me in the Tower Papers during a visit to Georgetown, Texas.
Public affairs offices in the Pentagon provided many of the book’s photo-
graphs. I especially appreciated the help of Ken Carter of the Office of the Sec-
retary of Defense, Joan Asboth and Lt. Col. Doug Wisnioski of the Joint Staff,
Ron Hall of the air force, Robert Melhorn of the army, and CPO Richard
Toppings of the navy. Steve Branch provided photographs from the Ronald
Reagan Library, and Kathy Vinson and Gene Tillson assisted with photographs
from the Defense Visual Information Center.
I performed much of my library research at the National Defense Univer-
sity Library, where the entire staff—Jean-Marie Faison, Mary Friedline, Alta
Linthicum, Rosemary Marlow-Dziuk, Bruce Thornlow, Carolyn Turner, and
Cheryl Weidner—worked hard to meet my needs. I also benefited from the pro-
fessional assistance of Debbie Reed and Christine Baldwin at the Pentagon
Library.
My uncle, Jack Locher, a retired college English professor, marked up each
of my drafts with red pencil, helping me to fix errors, both large and small. My
son, Jay, the family’s youngest English scholar, teacher, and writer, also exam-
ined every page, offering creative ideas for more vivid storytelling. I also need to
acknowledge the contributions of the family cat, Marshmallow. Every morn-
ing, she joined me at my writing desk, serving as a steady, consoling compan-
ion on this long journey.
All of this generous support combined, however, does not equal the con-
tributions of my wife, Norma. Without her love, encouragement, understand-
ing, and counsel, this book would not have been possible.
ACRONYMS
ANGLICO Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company

BLT battalion landing team
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CINC commander in chief
CINCPAC commander in chief, Pacific Command
CINCPACFLT commander in chief, Pacific Fleet
CJCS chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
CMRC Congressional Military Reform Caucus
CNA Center for Naval Analyses
CNO chief of naval operations
CSIS Center for Strategic and International Studies
CSSG Chairman’s Special Study Group
DoD Department of Defense
EUCOM European Command
FECOM Far East Command
FY Fiscal Year
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
HASC House Armed Services Committee
JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff
JROC Joint Requirements Oversight Council
JSOC Joint Special Operations Command
JWCA Joint Warfighting Capabilities Assessments
LANTCOM Atlantic Command
MFO Multinational Force Organization
MAU marine amphibious unit
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDU National Defense University
NME National Military Establishment
NSA National Security Agency
NSC National Security Council
NSDD National Security Decision Directive
OJCS Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
OMB Office of Management and Budget
OMC Office of Military Cooperation
ONI Office of Naval Intelligence
OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense
xviii Acronyms
PACOM Pacific Command

PACAF Pacific Air Forces
PPBS Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System
PLO Palestine Liberation Organization
RDJTF Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force
SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
SASC Senate Armed Services Committee
SECDEF secretary of defense
SECNAV secretary of the navy
SFRC Senate Foreign Relations Committee
SIOP Single Integrated Operational Plan
SOF special operations forces
SOUTHCOM Southern Command
SWPA Southwest Pacific Area
UNAAF Unified Action Armed Forces
USA U.S. Army
USAF U.S. Air Force
USARPAC U.S. Army, Pacific
USC United States Code
USFJ U.S. Forces, Japan
USMC U.S. Marine Corps
USN U.S. Navy
Prologue: Turf, Power, Service 1
VICTORY ON THE POTOMAC

2 Victory on the Potomac
Prologue
Turf, Power, Service
If the Navy’s welfare is one of the prerequisites to the
nation’s welfare—and I sincerely believe that to be
the case—any step that is not good for the Navy is
not good for the nation.
—Fleet Adm. Ernest J. King, 1945
“T his legislation would cripple the Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS],” snapped Gen.
John A. Wickham Jr. as he glared at Sen. Barry Goldwater and Sen. Sam
Nunn, “with serious consequences for the nation’s security.” Continuing his
attack on their draft bill to reorganize the Department of Defense (DoD), the
army chief angrily charged, “This bill would rob the service chiefs of their
proper authority, denigrate their role, and complicate their administration of
the services.”1
Goldwater’s and Nunn’s pained expressions and rigid posture signaled that
the emotion and hostility of Wickham’s outburst had rocked them. I was equally
shocked. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee (SASC), accompanied by me and two other committee staff members,
were meeting in early February, , with the five-member JCS. Convened on
the chiefs’ turf in their hallowed conference room in the Pentagon, known as
the “Tank,” the meeting focused solely on Goldwater’s and Nunn’s reorganiza-
tion legislation. Designed to end military disunity and infighting, the senators’
bill would mandate the most sweeping reforms in nearly forty years.
The Pentagon badly needed reform. The military bureaucracy had tied it-
self in knots since World War II and lost outright the Vietnam conflict and three
lesser engagements: the USS Pueblo seizure, the Desert One raid, and the peace-
keeping operation in Beirut. The Korean War, Mayaguez rescue, and Grenada
incursion were hardly resounding victories. Decision making had become so
convoluted, fiefdoms so powerful and inbred, lines of authority so confused,
and chains of command so entangled that the military hierarchy had repeat-
edly failed the nation. Third-rate powers and terrorists had humiliated America.
Tens of thousands of troops had died needlessly. Unprecedented levels of de-
fense spending were not making the nation more secure. Goldwater and Nunn
were resolved to fix this dysfunctional system. The fiefdoms were equally deter-
mined to preserve their power and independence.
“As the bill is drafted,” Wickham thundered, “it would leave uncertain who
within the Army would be responsible for giving advice on operational mat-
ters. Would it be the chief or would it now be the secretary? The upshot of this
confusion would be an erosion of the chief ’s authority to provide military ad-
vice.”2 Now in full stride and with righteous indignation powering his words,
Wickham signaled the coming of a lengthy harangue.
The senators had known this would be a tough meeting. The Pentagon had
vigorously opposed reorganization efforts since their beginning four years earlier,
and the current service leaders were ranked as the most strident antagonists. Yet
Goldwater and Nunn were not prepared for the rage and level of animosity they
were facing. They never expected the top brass—whose rise to four-star rank re-
quires cool, professional demeanor—to be explosive hotheads. Moreover, as pow-
erful legislators, Goldwater and Nunn were accustomed to respectful treatment
by generals and admirals—not the rough-and-tumble of this encounter.
The meeting’s high-decibel start troubled me. The chiefs had firmly criti-
cized reorganization in testimony and interviews. But behind closed doors, they
were mounting an all-out assault. In an unusual arrangement, I served as the
senior reorganization staff member for both Chairman Goldwater and ranking
Democrat Nunn. Wickham had stunned my two bosses and put them on the
defensive. His success with shock tactics would embolden two other chiefs—
Adm. James D. Watkins and the Marine Corps’s Gen. P. X. Kelley—whose views
were even stronger. I realized that this session was going to be brutal.
As Wickham attacked, Kelley grumbled disparaging comments under his
breath—loud enough for the tone if not always the words to be heard.3 At age
seventy-six, Goldwater was hard of hearing, so the commandant’s mutterings
were not audible to him. The feisty Arizonan would not have tolerated such
disrespectful behavior.
“The proposed strengthening of the service secretaries is ill-considered,”
Wickham declared. “It would come at the expense of the service chiefs. The
most damaging aspect is making each chief ’s performance as a Joint Chief sub-
ject to the direction and control of his service secretary. The chiefs would no
longer be able to provide independent military advice.”4
By the majority of accounts, the service chiefs—with rare exceptions—
dominated their supposed civilian bosses. But the dictatorial rule of Navy Sec-
retary John F. Lehman Jr. drove Wickham’s worries. The army chief had watched
Lehman accumulate power, ruthlessly impose his will, and humiliate top sail-
ors and marines. Wickham feared that Goldwater and Nunn had modeled their
legislation on the seemingly popular Lehman. He did not know that the two
senators held an unfavorable view of the navy secretary. Wickham saw a threat,
and his alarm was genuine.5
This confrontational meeting occurred on the eve of the SASC’s first ses-
sion to consider Goldwater and Nunn’s bill. More than a year earlier, the two
leaders had formed a partnership to tackle this controversial topic. Despite their
best efforts, their committee remained bitterly divided on reorganization. Ironi-
cally, Goldwater’s Republican colleagues were his strongest opponents.
Goldwater and Nunn were not certain that they could muster enough votes to
make progress. Thus, they stood on shaky ground on Capitol Hill when they
came to the Pentagon for their stormy meeting.
The aging Republican luminary and rising Democratic star made an at-
tractive political combination, and they rarely faced such long odds on a de-
fense issue. Seldom were their allies so few and their adversaries so numerous
and powerful. Not only were Goldwater and Nunn confronting the Pentagon,
they also were fighting off Capitol Hill colleagues, military associations, defense
contractors, veterans groups, retired officer and noncommissioned officer as-
sociations, and others who sat in the military’s corner for one reason or an-
other. Goldwater and Nunn’s fight against DoD antireformers and their horde
of allies made for a David-and-Goliath battle on the Potomac.
The senators and staff members Richard D. Finn Jr., Jeffrey H. Smith, and I
assembled in the JCS chairman’s office shortly before six o’clock in the evening on
Monday, February . William J. Crowe Jr. was the eleventh chairman and the third
admiral to hold the military’s most prestigious post. With a Princeton doctorate
in politics, he was a true warrior-statesman. Balding and stocky, Crowe looked
like an affable granddad. With his heavyset build—Annapolis classmates called
him “the Neck”—Crowe could also be mistaken for a Soviet admiral. I admired
his keen intellect, common sense, and ability to rise above the service parochial-
ism that dominated Pentagon politics. Goldwater and Nunn also respected Crowe.
The admiral’s demeanor telegraphed the ordeal ahead. A friendly Oklaho-
man with a big smile and a bigger heart, Crowe typically offered a warm wel-
come and a story or two. On this day, he was cordial, but he was troubled and
distracted. Our host spun no stories.
1. Senators Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn. (©1986, The

Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.
Photo by James K. W. Atherton.)
The admiral led our small delegation to the Tank, where the four service
chiefs waited. I had expected to find a space-age room equipped with high-
technology gadgets—a setting fit for the weighty issues debated there—but the
Tank looked like dozens of other nondescript Pentagon meeting rooms.
Although the setting was ordinary, the atmospherics were extraordinary.
The tight-jawed, brooding faces of the nation’s top warriors generated a pow-
erful tension. The stars on their shoulders, braid on their sleeves, and ribbons
on their chests testified to their experience, accomplishments, and skills. These
were hardened veterans, equally adept on the battlefield and in the bureau-
cracy.
Crowe placed Goldwater and Nunn across from him at the big table in the
center of the room. The chiefs’ places were set by tradition. Wickham and
Watkins flanked the two senators. The air force chief, Gen. Charles A. Gabriel,
sat next to Crowe, and Kelley occupied a seat around the corner from Watkins.
We staffers sat behind Goldwater and Nunn. Two Joint Staff officers—Brig. Gen.
Arnold Schlossberg Jr., USA, and Capt. Richard D. DeBobes, USN—sat next to
me. Schlossberg handled reorganization for the joint chiefs. DeBobes was their
legal adviser and legislative assistant. Vice Admiral Powell Carter, Joint Staff
director, sat at Crowe’s left. The chairman’s assistant, Lt. Gen. John Moellering,
USA, sat behind his boss.
Crowe opened by stating his reservations about the bill in tough but con-
structive language. From my lengthy, private discussions with Crowe, Goldwater
and Nunn knew that the admiral supported the goals of the draft bill. But if
Crowe strayed far from the party line in this meeting with his fellow chiefs, he
2. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in December, 1985 (left to right):

Gen. John A. Wickham, Jr., army chief of staff; Gen. Charles A. Gabriel, air
force chief of staff; Adm. James D. Watkins, chief of naval operations; Adm.
William J. Crowe Jr., chairman (seated); and Gen. P. X. Kelley,
commandant of the Marine Corps. (DoD photo.)
would become an outcast. His comments were not comforting, but they were
expected.6
Wickham spoke next. He epitomized an army general: distinguished, all-
American looks, intellectual, spiritual, professional. A brilliant career had
earned him high regard in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. His reputation for
courtesy and graciousness made the intemperate harshness of his attack more
startling. Oddly, much of Wickham’s wrath was focused on an imagined issue
in the draft bill. For twenty-five minutes he accused Goldwater and Nunn of
trying to place each chief under his service secretary’s control in the perfor-
mance of his separate responsibilities as a joint chief. The senators had no in-
tention of making this change. It had never been raised as an issue during four
years of reorganization debate. Seizing on a technical error in the draft bill,
Wickham had leaped to a fictive conclusion. To berate Goldwater and Nunn on
this alleged problem wasted the chiefs’ limited time with the senators. Goldwater
and Nunn listened in silent disbelief. Wickham’s comments were so far off the
mark that they did not have the slightest idea what he was talking about.
I worried about what my two bosses were thinking. For more than a year,
opponents had criticized their every step. It had been a long struggle already,
and greater challenges lay ahead. I wondered if this explosive session would
demoralize them. Facing an all-out fight from the Pentagon, would they press
ahead? Did they still think this battle could be won? Would Goldwater continue
to risk alienating his Republican colleagues, undermining his ability to lead
the committee? Would Nunn be prepared to see his impeccable defense record
tarnished by a crushing defeat? How much faith did the two senators have in
each other? Given my critical role, how much confidence did they have in me?
Twenty minutes into Wickham’s diatribe, Goldwater slammed his cane on
the table and returned fire. “I am offended by your accusations that the bill
would cripple the chiefs,” Goldwater said. “I’ve always been one of the stron-
gest defense supporters in Congress. I resent your attack on my genuine efforts
in this bill to strengthen the military. After all that I’ve done for the armed ser-
vices, I can’t believe that you are accusing me of taking actions that would
harm the military.” The senator paused and glowered at the chiefs before issu-
ing this warning: “If you think you can bully Sam and me, you are mistaken.
You might be able to bully others, but I think you’re taking big risks with your
confrontational tactics.”7
The chiefs’ unmoving faces conveyed that Goldwater’s arguments had not
changed any minds or cooled any passions. Undaunted by the SASC chairman’s
tough response, Kelley renewed the offensive. “It is clear that the testimony of
the chiefs before your committee was completely ignored in the drafting of this
bill. I am troubled that the views of others on security matters carry more weight
than the views of the service chiefs who are the nation’s principal military ad-
visers.”8
Goldwater rebuffed Kelley’s complaint, then asked me to respond to

Wickham’s assertions. I knew every word in the draft bill and recognized the
error that had seized the army chief ’s attention. Given the acrimony, I responded
as respectfully as possible. “General Wickham has, indeed, found a technical
error in the draft bill,” I began. “I see how it could lead to misinterpretations of
the provision’s intent. The needed editorial fix is simple. The provision in ques-
tion needs to be moved to a separate paragraph. When that’s done, it will be
clear that the chiefs are independent of the service secretaries in performing
their duties as joint chiefs.”9
My statement made Wickham even angrier. He had spent twenty-five min-
utes huffing and puffing to construct an argument that had been undone in
twenty-five seconds. The general appeared unconvinced. Under his breath,
Kelley sent barbs in my direction.
Given their vast power and influence, service officials—military and civil-
ian—liked things the way they were. The services controlled the JCS. They also
dominated the unified commands—the major warfighting commands consist-
ing of forces from two or more military departments—by limiting the author-
ity of unified commanders and keeping their service component commanders
independent. The services gained the upper hand with the defense secretary by
offering self-serving advice, locking arms whenever the secretary threatened core
interests, and circumventing him with appeals to Congress.
The services and congressional allies had defeated efforts by Pres. Harry S.
Truman and Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower to curtail their power and create a more
unified DoD. These defeats—particularly of Eisenhower—had intimidated others
who thought of challenging the services. Twenty-eight years after Eisenhower’s
last reorganization effort, Goldwater and Nunn were finding that many on their
committee still supported the services on organizational matters.
Even if Wickham and the other chiefs thought that reforms were needed,
they did not want them taking place on their watch. The services had domi-
nated military affairs since the JCS first met in February, . The current chiefs
did not want service histories to say that they had been incapable of defending
the services’ powerful place in Pentagon decision making.
The two chiefs who spoke after Wickham, Watkins and Kelley, also sharply
attacked the bill. Tall, cool, and aloof, Watkins was called “the Cardinal” in
navy circles. The moniker signified the navy chief ’s haughty personality as
much as his Catholic devoutness.10 The admiral labeled the bill “terribly flawed
and certainly not in the best interests of national security.”11
Escalating the rhetoric, the barrel-chested Kelley boomed in his Boston-
accented command voice: “If this bill were enacted, I would have deep concerns
about the future security of the United States. I know of no other document
which has concerned me more in my thirty-six years of uniformed service to
my country.”12
The chiefs seemed to attack in a pack. Exaggerations and oversimplifica-

tions flew across the table: “The bill would give the chairman too much au-
thority.”13 The unified commanders would end up becoming “warlords.” “Our
combat commanders would become bureaucrats instead of warfighters.”14
“The bill would create chaos.” “It provides a complex, unworkable solution to
an ill-defined problem.” 15 “The commanders would become mired in
contracting.”
Nunn rebutted the chiefs: “In our three years of studying reorganization,
no deficiency has been as clearly or painfully demonstrated as the weaknesses
of the unified commanders. Every time we’ve failed or performed poorly—such
as Vietnam, Mayaguez, Pueblo, Beirut, Grenada—it can be traced to the lack of
unity of command.” He paused, then continued in a more determined tone:
“Unity of command gets a lot of lip service here in the Pentagon. But it is woe-
fully implemented. We will continue to be plagued by operational problems until
we strengthen field commanders. We must give them the authority they need
to meld units from all services into an effective fighting force.”16
Although I knew that the chiefs’ sharp rhetoric and hot-tempered be-
havior had jolted Goldwater and Nunn, my disbelief was greater and more
painful. As a West Pointer with ten years of Pentagon experience, I was
devastated by the unsightly spectacle of America’s top officers emotionally
and closed-mindedly arguing narrow, outmoded service perspectives. West
Point’s motto, “Duty, Honor, Country,” had been instilled in me as a cadet.
But now I was hearing something different. It sounded like “Turf, Power,
Service.” These dedicated patriots and most of their predecessors over four
decades honestly believed in the canard “What’s good for my service is good
for the country.”
Gabriel spoke last. The air force chief was subdued and deliberate. The slow
cadence of his North Carolina drawl matched his personality. Gabriel rarely
showed emotion and seldom turned an issue into a crusade—and reorganiza-
tion was not one of Gabriel’s crusades. The air force chief ended the meeting in
the same constructive tone that Crowe had begun it. Yet, although neither
Gabriel nor Crowe had participated in the tirade, they never disagreed with
their boisterous colleagues. Throughout the meeting, the chiefs presented a
united front.17
As the senators rose to depart, Crowe, Gabriel, and Wickham gathered to
shake their hands. Watkins and Kelley made no effort to do so. They looked like
two old salts spoiling for a bar fight.18
As we walked back to Crowe’s office, I again worried about the senators’
thinking. Would the beating they had taken in the Tank cause them to change
course? Would the vehement opposition of three chiefs and cautions sounded
by Crowe and Gabriel convince Goldwater and Nunn to delay their planned
legislative work or set less ambitious goals?
When we entered Crowe’s office, his executive assistant handed me a thick

package of papers, including a long letter from Secretary of Defense Caspar W.
Weinberger. A handwritten note on top read: “Jim Locher, Attached is the
department’s response to the staff bill. Please deliver to Senator Goldwater.
Thanks, Colin Powell.”19 Then a major general, Powell was Weinberger’s se-
nior military assistant.
Looking at the half-inch-thick stack of papers in my hand, Goldwater asked,
“What’s that?”
When I responded, “The department’s official comments on the draft bill,”
Goldwater exclaimed, “Jesus!”
Crowe made his office available for Goldwater and Nunn to privately com-
pare notes with Finn, Smith, and me. The senators were still dazed. Neither
said a word.
“Well, what do you think?” I inquired.
“Christ, could you believe all of that crap?” Goldwater blurted. “I’ve never
seen the chiefs that worked up.”
“I knew they felt strongly,” Nunn interrupted, “but I never expected to see
them that emotional.”
“Their turf is the most important thing to them,” Goldwater continued.
“When it’s threatened, there’s no reasoning with them. The chiefs’ message to
us was clear. They don’t believe in reorganization, and they’re telling us to go
to hell.”20
“I also couldn’t believe how ill-informed many of their arguments were,”
Nunn added. “They can’t get past the emotion to see the real issues.”21
“Where in the hell did Wickham get the idea that we wanted to subordinate
the work of the joint chiefs to the service secretaries?” Goldwater wanted to know.
“They seemed to take the worst possible interpretation of every provision.”22
“Wickham privately told me he agreed with some parts of the bill,” Nunn
interjected. “So, I didn’t expect him to be the most hostile chief. But he went
ballistic.”23
“If the Pentagon is ever going to be straightened out, the only hope is for
Congress to do it,” Goldwater concluded. “The services are so parochial and
powerful, there’s no way the executive branch will ever get it done.”
“You’re right,” Nunn responded. “And Barry, I hate to say this, but for more
than a year we’ve bent over backwards trying to work with the Pentagon. After
tonight, I don’t think there is any way to cooperate with the chiefs on reorgani-
zation. There may not be anyone in the Pentagon that we can openly work
with.”24
Struggling to reconcile his respect for the joint chiefs, individually and col-
lectively, and disappointment over the outcome of the meeting, Goldwater said:
“I hate to see it happen this way, but we don’t have any choice. The system is
flawed, and we’ve got to fix it.”
“You know,” I interjected, “tomorrow morning we’re going to get another

dose of these arguments from the chiefs’ allies on the committee. Do you still
want to hold the session in the morning?”25
“I didn’t hear anything that changed my mind,” Goldwater answered. “I
think we ought to proceed as planned. What do you think, Sam?”
“We’re headed for a bitter and divisive battle in our committee, but I don’t
see any reason to delay,” Nunn replied.26
The chiefs had had their showdown with the SASC leaders. If the meeting
had been intended to alter Goldwater’s and Nunn’s thinking, the chiefs had
fired blank rounds. If the meeting had been designed to intimidate the senators
by emotional saber rattling, it had backfired. What the senators saw and heard
shocked and temporarily unnerved them, but they were not about to back down.
Goldwater and Nunn emerged from the skirmish in the Tank with the under-
standing that the coming battle would be bloody. Even more important, they
knew it was a fight they had to win.
But could they?
The Rise of Service Supremacists 13
PART
1
The Fog of
Defense
Organization
14 The Fog of Defense Organization
CHAPTER 1
The Rise of
Service Supremacists
Although most history books glorify our military
accomplishments, a closer examination reveals a
disconcerting pattern: unpreparedness at the start of
a war; initial failures; reorganizing while fighting;
cranking up our industrial base; and ultimately
prevailing by wearing down the enemy—by being
bigger, not smarter.
—Gen. David C. Jones, USAF, 1982
I n the early s, powerful army, navy, air force, and Marine Corps officials
and organizations dominated the Pentagon. “The overwhelming influence of
the four services” was judged to be “completely out of proportion to their le-
gally assigned and limited formal responsibilities.”1 The services wielded their
influence more to protect their independence and prerogatives than to develop
multiservice commands capable of waging modern warfare. They also blunted
efforts to make their separate forces, weapons, and systems interoperable.
The services achieved this preeminent position and accumulated unprec-
edented political muscle during World War II. In the postwar period, the navy
and Marine Corps flexed this muscle and, with the help of congressional allies,
repeatedly weakened the plans of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower to unify

the military. Although the war had amply demonstrated the need for tighter
integration, the navy and Marine Corps were determined to preserve their au-
tonomy. After Eisenhower’s attempt to overhaul the military in , no seri-
ous reorganization effort occurred for nearly a quarter of a century, despite a
succession of operational setbacks and administrative fiascos.2
In contrast to the power, prestige, and public approval of the twenty-first-
century military, strong antimilitary sentiments dominated public attitudes
from the time of independence until Pearl Harbor. Americans generally rejected
and neglected their armed forces.3 The nation’s historic antipathy toward the
military conflicts with popular notions. History books abound with military
heroes like George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee, John J. “Black
Jack” Pershing, and Sergeant York. But the public’s esteem and affection for
uniformed heroes did not carry over to the military profession.
Americans rejected the concept of a military profession, convinced that
“amateur” citizen soldiers could and should provide security.4 Instead, America
focused on the military’s technical skills, producing an overemphasis on engi-
neering and science that would plague the army and navy into the twentieth
century. Prior to the Civil War, “much of the energy of the Army and the Navy
was devoted to the essentially civilian pursuits of exploration, scientific re-
search, and internal development.”5 This technical orientation hindered de-
velopment of competence in planning, operations, and command. In the early
s, Rear Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan, the navy’s premier strategist, “repu-
diated the tendency of professional naval officers to stake out their profession
by emphasizing highly technical skills,” leaving the essential planning and
operations functions “to the nonprofessionals.”6
The nineteenth century passed without major organizational changes.
Before , Congress enacted only two significant statutes: creation of the
positions of secretary of war in  and secretary of the navy in . Army
officers “displayed little interest” in organization before the Spanish-American
War. An essay contest on army organization in  did not produce a winner
because “none of the articles submitted was judged worthy of the award.”7
Soon after America emerged as a world power, the Spanish-American War re-
vealed organizational weaknesses. Notwithstanding the victory over Spain, the
army performed poorly, and the army and navy failed to cooperate. Relations
were so strained at the end of fighting in Cuba that the army commander re-
fused to turn captured Spanish ships over to the navy or allow a navy repre-
sentative to sign the surrender document.
Reacting to the army’s dismal performance, Pres. William McKinley sacked
his secretary of war. It was, however, unrealistic to expect the War Department
to manage a war with “which it had never been organized or equipped to deal.”8
The lack of sufficient authority in the hands of civilian and military lead-
ers in the War and Navy Departments was the most severe deficiency. No
one—not even the secretaries—had enough power to be in charge. The army
technical services (Corps of Engineers, Quartermaster Corps, Ordnance De-
partment, and Signal Corps) and navy bureaus (Yards and Docks, Ordnance,
Supplies and Accounts, Construction and Repair, and Steam Engineering)
remained virtually independent fiefdoms, their autonomy guaranteed by
Congress.9
Neither department had designated a senior officer to represent professional
military interests and provide operational advice. Ironically, officers represented
civilian-like technical interests while the civilian secretaries handled profes-
sional military and operational matters.10
A third major problem: Except for the president, no one coordinated ac-
tivities of the War and Navy Departments. During the nineteenth century, the
president’s role as sole coordinator did not overburden him. In the twentieth
century, domestic affairs increasingly demanded the president’s attention. The
expanded scope and complexity of military activities further taxed the chief
executive. His inability to coordinate army and navy activities was not under-
stood until the Pearl Harbor disaster provided compelling evidence.11
Nevertheless, the first four decades of the twentieth century had witnessed
a continuous—albeit largely unsuccessful—search for organizational improve-
ments. The two most significant reforms occurred in the aftermath of the Span-
ish-American War. In , Elihu Root, a New York corporate lawyer who knew
nothing about war or the army, reluctantly accepted McKinley’s request that
he head the War Department. The new secretary “made vigorous efforts to in-
form himself.” Root focused on correcting ineffective central control and poor
performance of professional military functions. The General Staff Act of 
authorized his solution: an army general staff, headed by a chief of staff.12 Draw-
ing ideas from the German military, Root envisioned the General Staff serving
as “the directing brain which every army must have, to work successfully.” To
gain control of the autonomous technical services, Root prescribed that the
chief of staff’s duties include “immediate direction of the supply departments.”13
Also in , Root and his navy counterpart signed an order establishing the
Joint Army-Navy Board, which they charged with addressing “all matters call-
ing for cooperation of the two services.” The board was the precursor of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.14
The Root reforms had profound consequences: the Army and Air Force
Departments still operate on the foundation they laid. Yet opposition to them
from War Department elements remained strong until the magnitude and com-
plexity of World War I mobilization and management proved to them the need
for a general staff. Congress continued to be skeptical of the General Staff’s “in-
terference” in the bureaus’ work.15
Lacking the pressures of the army’s wartime demands and failures, navy
organizational reforms lagged far behind, despite determined efforts by reform-
ers. In , responding to naval officers’ pressures for a naval general staff to
provide “central direction and control,” the navy secretary created instead the
General Board, tasked merely with developing plans and furnishing advice. Navy
Secretary Josephus Daniels “regarded a general staff not simply as unwise but
as undemocratic and ‘un-American.’”16
Beyond the navy’s General Board, the only other significant pre–World War
II reform in naval organization occurred in  when Congress created the
position of chief of naval operations (CNO). Naval officers had pressed for a
“powerful commanding” admiral, but Secretary Daniels succeeded in limiting
the CNO’s authority. After , the navy undertook “no important changes
of any kind” until .17
These early army and navy reorganizations achieved vastly different re-
sults. The army centralized authority under the secretary and chief of staff. The
navy remained decentralized with autonomous bureau chiefs. The army em-
phasized control; the navy relied on cooperation and coordination. The two
services “developed entirely different management systems, as two duchies
might,” contributing significantly to army-navy organizational disputes dur-
ing and after World War II.18
The revered concept of independent command at sea also shaped naval
attitudes on organization. “Independent command of ships at sea is a unique,
godlike responsibility unlike that afforded to commanding officers in other ser-
vices,” explained Carl H. Builder. “Until the advent of telecommunications, a
ship ‘over the horizon’ was a world unto itself, with its captain absolutely re-
sponsible for every soul and consequence that fell under his command.” The
navy gloried in this independence and resisted organizational arrangements
that encroached “into the details of its command and control.”19
The Joint Army-Navy Board’s early work focused on minor matters. Its “vir-
tual disappearance” during World War I attested to its limited role. Although
the secretaries of war and the navy strengthened the board after the war, the
two departments did not view it “as a means of drawing the two armed forces
into ever closer integration.” The army and navy limited the board to “provid-
ing sufficient coordination to allow the two services to continue to operate au-
tonomously in all major essentials.”20
The board prescribed “mutual cooperation” as the favored method of
interservice interaction, disregarding centuries-old lessons on the need for unity
of command. In December, , army and navy commands relied on mutual
cooperation to coordinate the defense of Hawaii.21
During the forty years before Pearl Harbor, antimilitary attitudes of the pub-
lic and Congress remained a principal obstacle to restructuring. Congress also
had other objectives in slowing or denying reform. Seeking to check the power
of the executive branch in military affairs, Congress frustrated many reforms

that would have strengthened central authority. Such reforms, Congress rea-
soned, would invigorate the executive branch to Capitol Hill’s disadvantage.
Local politics also played a role. The technical services and bureaus gener-
ated jobs and contracts in congressional districts. Preserving their independence
enhanced continued congressional control of resources. Alliances between Con-
gress and the technical services and bureaus stymied reorganization.22
The lack of a consensus on principles for organizing the military exacer-
bated the obstacles to reform. Experts debated issues for decades without reso-
lution. Beyond arguments over the relative importance of technical and
operational skills, unsettled issues included centralization versus decentrali-
zation, the absence of a national military strategy, the division of civilian and
military responsibilities, and the merits of the general staff concept.23
The advent of military aviation blurred the distinction between land and
sea warfare—the basic organizing principle since the republic’s beginning—
and signaled the need for adjustments in organization and warfighting concepts.
The demonstration of airpower’s potential in World War I raised expectations
for creation of a separate military department. In , Brig. Gen. William “Billy”
Mitchell, looking beyond the immediate goal of a separate air force, predicted:
“If we look forward, there will be a ministry of defense, combining army, navy,
and air force under one direction.” Few shared Mitchell’s vision.24
In , with war again looming, military groups focused on the need for more
effective interservice coordination. In June, the navy’s General Board offered a
plan that envisioned “the superimposition of a joint general staff with a single
chief of staff serving the president directly and the establishment of unified
commands in all theaters and coastal defense areas.” With isolationists accus-
ing the Roosevelt administration of “leading the country down the road to war,”
senior officers concluded that consideration of the board’s sweeping proposal
was “impossible because of the political repercussions.”25
In early December, the War and Navy Departments were still in the early
stages of addressing their organizational problems. The two “virtually autono-
mous” departments remained incapable of harmonizing internal business
activities and coordinating land, sea, and air operations.26 The humiliating Japa-
nese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December  painfully exposed the woeful
command structure and limitations of mutual cooperation. The public outcry
dictated a unified effort by American fighting forces. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt designated theater commanders, such as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, to provide unified com-
mand.27 Wartime logistics requirements doomed the independence of the tech-
nical services and bureaus, although the navy bureaus continued to resist
control by central authority.28
Another invention of necessity reached farther. To ensure an effective

Anglo-American military relationship, Roosevelt formed the JCS to deal with a
British counterpart. Initially, this body consisted of the army chief of staff, Gen.
George C. Marshall Jr.; the commanding general of the Army Air Forces, Gen.
Henry H. “Hap” Arnold; and the CNO, Adm. Ernest J. King. At Marshall’s urg-
ing, Roosevelt added his chief of staff, Adm. William D. Leahy, as a fourth
member.
Creation of the JCS represented Roosevelt’s principal organizational re-
sponse to wartime policy and planning requirements. Notably, the president
did not create complementary organizations and officials to provide a robust
civilian perspective in planning and directing the war. The chiefs filled every
inch of this vacuum. They became the president’s military, diplomatic, politi-
cal, and intelligence officers.29
American inexperience in multiservice coordination stunned Field Mar-
shal Sir John Dill, the senior British officer assigned to Washington for liaison.
Of the JCS’s early work, he wrote to London, “The whole organization belongs
to the days of George Washington.”30
Despite inauspicious beginnings, the JCS filled a crucial need. In providing
the president integrated, multiservice advice, the JCS attained “a degree of
unified purpose and accomplishment without precedent.” But it had one fatal
weakness. Consisting of four equals—two generals and two admirals—the JCS
was unable to reach a decision except by unanimous agreement. On many oc-
casions, “decision by the Joint Chiefs proved to be impossible.” One early issue
exemplified this defect.31
The British had recommended the diversion of steel from battleship and
heavy-cruiser construction to build more landing craft and convoy escort ships.
Only King opposed the diversion. “When Leahy remarked that it looked to him
as though ‘the vote is three to one,’ King replied coldly that so far as he was
concerned, the Joint Chiefs was not a voting organization on any matter in
which the interests of the Navy were involved.”32 He demanded a veto, not sim-
ply a vote.
The requirement for unanimity allowed the chiefs to successfully address
“the larger problems of strategy and operations . . . only briefly and with respect
to a limited range of issues.” The chiefs’ record did “not justify the conclusion
that World War II was a test of the JCS which established its value beyond sub-
stantial doubt.”33
Institutional weaknesses in Washington also undermined efforts to estab-
lish unity of command in the field. In , a JCS special committee reported
that in all theaters of operation “complete integration of effort has not yet been
achieved because we are still struggling with inconsistencies, lack of under-
standing, jealousies and duplications.” Of the intense army-navy competition
and mistrust, Britain’s Air Marshal Sir John Slessor wrote, “The violence of
3. Admiral William D. Leahy (seated at head of table) presides at a meeting

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1944. Generals George C. Marshall and Henry H.
Arnold are to Leahy’s right and Adm. Ernest J. King is to his left.
interservice rivalry in the United States had to be seen to be believed and was
an appreciable handicap to their war effort.”34
The enormous wartime role given to the JCS and the vast power and influ-
ence it accumulated proved troubling after the war. Determined to maintain
civilian control of the military, civilian leaders, especially Congress, had kept
the military weak and isolated, often too much so for the nation’s good.
Roosevelt had placed the sacred principle of civilian control at risk. He did not
limit the chiefs to military affairs. They had significant political roles. Next to
the president, they were the most powerful force in the war effort. Two genera-
tions of leaders would struggle to reestablish control over these military heavy-
weights.35
The JCS’s operating style magnified its power and influence. Its closed staff
approach permitted it to make decisions “relatively unfettered and unobserved.”
It also had complete freedom in determining “what it would and would not
consider, with whom it would and would not deal, and the extent to which it
would expose its internal workings.” Throughout the war, the JCS used a model
that resembled the Supreme Court. Given the chiefs’ administrative duties, this
approach—with its poor communications, uncertain corporate attitudes, and
lack of expeditiousness—created major wartime problems and proved equally
troubling in peacetime.36
Roosevelt was comfortable with the military juggernaut he had created,
but controlling it depended on the president’s personality and bureaucratic

skills. Even before Roosevelt’s death, the chiefs had determined to avoid a re-
turn to their services’ previous isolation and neglect. Marshall remembered all
too well “how the Army was dismantled and virtually destroyed during the
years between the world wars.” In one instance, an army regiment transferred
from Philadelphia to St. Louis had to walk because no money was available to
transport the men by train. The chiefs wanted to preserve their strong position.
When Roosevelt died on April , , the balance of power in civil-military
relations shifted in favor of the newly influential chiefs.37
The JCS’s wartime pattern of behavior was both well established and ac-
cepted. The chiefs also emerged from the war as larger-than-life heroes—the
victors of the greatest war ever fought. No longer “the cowed and submissive
men of the s,” the individual chiefs and the JCS as an institution “were
viewed as the military equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi.”38
The combination of precedent and JCS stature obstructed postwar reorga-
nization. The wartime weakening of civilian control—the cardinal principle that
had governed civil-military relations since the American Revolution—presented
the greatest challenge. In , Admiral Leahy unashamedly observed that ex-
cept for the president himself, “the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the present time are
under no civilian control whatever.” Abandoning their favorable prewar atti-
tudes toward civilian control, the chiefs wanted their new exalted status insti-
tutionalized. Not only did they want to become a permanent body with vast
duties, they wanted to report only to the president.39
The Allied victory over Germany and Japan gave birth to the myth that the
joint chiefs had effectively executed their wartime responsibilities. As Pres. John
F. Kennedy said, “The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—
deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and
unrealistic.”40 The JCS myth endured for two generations and contributed to
the prolonged battle to rein in the excessive power of the chiefs and correct
resulting organizational distortions.
The first skirmishes over unification were fought during the war. Shortly after
its creation, the JCS considered the navy General Board’s idea of a joint general
staff and single chief of staff. Marshall supported the plan, but “opposition in
Navy quarters was inveterate and sincere.” The navy’s objection centered on
the absence of “a corps of officers thoroughly cognizant of the capabilities,
limitations, and tested doctrines of all branches of the two services.”41
In early , army officers expressed dissatisfaction with the JCS system.
They saw the War and Navy Departments as “competing, often hostile, bu-
reaucracies” and judged the result to be “duplication of effort and considerable
unnecessary confusion . . . ultimately retarding the war effort with an incalcu-
lable increase in casualties and destruction.”42
Later that year, Marshall forwarded for JCS consideration an army plan for
a single Department of National Defense, with a secretary, four under secretar-
ies, and a single chief of staff. The Army Air Forces favored this approach be-
cause it offered the greatest potential for an independent and equal status for
aviation. The navy—fearful of domination by the army and a newly indepen-
dent air force—continued to oppose unification and defend the status quo, find-
ing “positive virtue in its continued independence and separateness.”43
At King’s request, the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, a strategy advi-
sory group, evaluated the army plan. The committee, composed of two generals
and two admirals, favored a single department. Its March, , report observed
that “the outstanding lesson of this war is that modern warfare is made up of
. . . ‘unified’ operations.” The members concluded that “all military elements
should be so closely interlocked and interrelated that the concept of one whole
is preferable to articulated units.”44 The committee recommended that the JCS
accept the principle of “three services [army, navy, air force] within one mili-
tary organization” and appoint a special committee to study the issue. Leahy
and King disagreed with the committee’s report, but agreed to appoint a spe-
cial committee consisting of two army and two navy officers and chaired by
Adm. James O. Richardson.45
In April, , the Richardson Committee reported that its members—
except for Richardson—were “unanimously in favor of a single department
system.” The report claimed, “This view is supported by Generals of the Army
MacArthur and Eisenhower, Fleet Admiral Nimitz, Admiral Halsey” and the
“great majority of the Army officers and almost exactly half of the Navy offic-
ers whose views were heard.” The committee recommended a secretary of the
armed forces to preside over the single department and a commander of the
armed forces supported by a general staff. The JCS would continue, but only as
an advisory body, and would include the new secretary and commander as
well as the service chiefs.46
The day after the Richardson Committee submitted its report, Roosevelt
died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He had served as assistant navy secretary dur-
ing World War I and had such a “notorious partiality” for the navy that Marshall
once asked, “At least, Mr. President, stop speaking of the Army as ‘they’ and
the Navy as ‘us.’” Roosevelt never took a public position on unification, but
Leahy reported that the president was never “in favor either of a unification of
the armed forces, or of an independent air force.” The navy believed that
Roosevelt would never force unification on them.47
Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, had a different attitude. His thirty-
five-year army affiliation began in  when he joined the National Guard.
Truman served as an artillery captain in France during World War I, and after
the war remained in the organized reserves. He attained the rank of colonel
and attended annual summer training through . Within days of Truman’s
swearing in, a close friend told a Missouri audience, “During the Roosevelt ad-
ministration the White House was a Navy wardroom; we’re going to fix that.”48
Truman was interested in military organization and “had studied every
plan that had been suggested through the years for its improvement.” Pearl
Harbor strengthened his conviction of the need for unified command in Wash-
ington and the field. During World War II, as chairman of the Senate Special
Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, he was appalled by
“the waste and inefficiency existing as a result of the operation of two separate
and uncoordinated military departments.” In  he published a magazine
article in which he argued the case for a single department: “Proof that a di-
vine Providence watches over the United States is furnished by the fact that we
have managed to escape disaster even though our scrambled professional mili-
tary setup has been an open invitation to catastrophe. . . . An obvious first step
is a consolidation of the Army and the Navy that will put all of our defensive
and offensive strength under one tent and one authoritative, responsible com-
mand—a complete integration that will consider the national security as a
whole.”49
Marshall and Arnold supported the Richardson Committee’s call for a single
department, while Leahy and King remained opposed “on the grounds that a
single military department would be inefficient, would weaken civilian control
of the military, and was contrary to wartime experience that showed the supe-
riority of a joint over a unitary system.” With this final disagreement, the JCS
as an institution lost its opportunity to influence reorganization.50
The reorganization conflict escalated into “a wrenching, bitter struggle.”
The prospect of an independent air force “engendered fear and dismay in the
Navy and Marine Corps.” Senior Army Air Forces officers questioned the need
for navy and Marine Corps aviation. The army and Marine Corps also had differ-
ing views on land warfare missions. The army argued that the marines “should
be restricted to duties with the fleet, and have only lightly armed units for shore
operations.” The navy and Marine Corps opposed unification as a way of “pro-
tecting their functions and the composition of their forces.” The Marine Corps
saw the struggle as a fight for survival.51
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson ridiculed “the peculiar psychology of
the Navy Department, which seemed to retire from the realm of logic into a
dim religious world in which Neptune was God, Mahan his prophet, and the
United States Navy the only true Church. The high priests of this Church were
a group of men to whom Stimson always referred as ‘the admirals.’”52
In  and afterward, Stimson found “the admirals” were “still active and
still uncontrolled by either their secretary or the president. This was not [Navy
Secretary William F.] Knox’s fault, or the president’s, as Stimson saw it. It was
simply that the Navy Department had never had an Elihu Root. ‘The admirals’
had never been given their comeuppance.”53
Not surprisingly, Truman advocated the War Department’s point of view.

In December, , the president told Congress, “There is enough evidence
now at hand to demonstrate beyond question the need for a unified depart-
ment.” Truman proposed a single Department of National Defense headed by
a secretary of national defense, assistant secretaries for land, naval, and air
forces, and a single chief of staff.54
Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal led the naval service’s opposition. He
informed the White House “that the proposals in the message were ‘completely
unworkable’ and that it would be impossible for him and senior naval officers
to testify in support of them.”55
Truman resisted the initial reaction of his staff to “screw the Navy,” aware
“that Forrestal represented a serious political problem. He was a large, im-
mensely respected public figure; he was the acknowledged Navy spokesman,
and the Navy position had formidable support in the Congress and in the body
politic.” The president understood that his efforts to unify the services would
escalate into a major political battle.56
Truman’s proposals renewed congressional fears of a loss of power to an
executive branch with a centralized military structure. Capitol Hill’s interest
in diffusion of military power had local political dimensions as well. With the
formerly independent technical services and bureaus now under firmer con-
trol, close relationships with the military departments would work to Con-
gress’ advantage on money and job issues, especially if higher authority was
less able to constrain the departments. Congress would give priority to pre-
serving service independence, as it had done earlier for the technical services
and bureaus.57
Conceding the strength of the navy and its congressional supporters,
Truman abandoned the idea of a single chief of staff and accepted statutory
creation of the JCS. Heavy navy and Marine Corps lobbying on Capitol Hill
watered down the president’s final compromise. The National Security Act of
—which codified the final agreement—created a unified structure, the
“National Military Establishment,” with three subordinate departments: army,
navy, and an independent air force. The act created the position of secretary of
defense to head this new organization, but limited his powers and staff, forcing
him to rely on cooperation among the services.
The National Security Act did not diminish the service chiefs’ power, which
they used to erect a service-dominated system. Although the unified commands
had shown their utility in wartime, the chiefs restricted the authorities of the
unified commanders and empowered their service component commanders.
When the chiefs were done, these commands were unified in name only.58
Eisenhower later said of the  debate and compromise: “In that battle
the lessons were lost, tradition won. The three service departments were but
loosely joined. The entire structure . . . was little more than a weak confedera-
tion of sovereign military units. Few powers were vested in the new secretary
of defense. All others were reserved to three separated executive departments.”59
The  act provided a weaker organization than the wartime arrange-
ment. It assigned to an impotent defense secretary the job of harmonizing the
work of three powerful military departments. The act permitted the services to
solidify their positions, including emasculation of the unified commands, which
the law barely recognized. It also left the defense secretary’s relationships with
the service secretaries undefined. Most significant, the act focused almost ex-
clusively on the civilian side. It left the military side unreformed and gave statu-
tory legitimacy to a dysfunctional, service-dominated JCS. At the time, few
understood the extent of the National Security Act’s shortcomings and how
service supremacists would resist each attempt to fix them.
Truman offered the defense secretary post to Secretary of War Robert P.

Patterson. When he declined, the president turned to Forrestal, the legislation’s
principal architect. Shortly before assuming his new position on September ,
, Forrestal wrote to a friend: “this office will probably be the greatest cem-
etery for dead cats in history.”60
Within nine frustrating months, Forrestal came to view his concept as un-
workable. He had been unable “to exercise effective control over the feuding
military services and to resolve the disputes over budgets, weapons, strategic
plans, and roles and missions.” The secretary concluded that the National Se-
curity Act needed to be amended.61
In meetings held in mid-, Forrestal found support from the army and
air force for placing “more central authority in the hands of the secretary of
defense.” The navy, on the other hand, “reacted with open bitterness.” Forrestal’s
campaign to strengthen the position of defense secretary “cost him the remain-
ing support and loyalty” of the navy, “and the loss was a heavy emotional blow
to him.”62
In early October, , Forrestal “acknowledged to the president that the
 act was inadequate, [and] that he couldn’t make it work.” Forrestal had
veered close to outright insubordination while the act was being formulated,
but the president graciously accepted his admission. He made “no ‘I-told-you-
so’ attempt to demonstrate his own prior wisdom on the subject.”63
In an effort to bring about needed changes, Forrestal lobbied Congress to
create a commission on executive branch organization. Headed by former presi-
dent Herbert Hoover, the commission established a task force that analyzed the
 act and issued “a devastating indictment of Forrestal’s original concep-
tion.”64 Its report declared that “centralized civilian control scarcely exists [and]
the Joint Chiefs of Staff are virtually a law unto themselves.”65
In response to the Hoover Commission recommendations, Truman pro-
posed statutory changes in March, . In August, Congress redesignated the
4. President Harry S. Truman and General of the Army Dwight D.

Eisenhower meet in December, 1950.
National Military Establishment as the Department of Defense, established the

new position of JCS chairman, and expanded the defense secretary’s powers
and staff. Congress rejected other proposals, including designating the new JCS
chairman as the principal military adviser.
The war in Korea preempted further action on organizational problems
for the remainder of Truman’s administration. During the  presidential
campaign, Eisenhower criticized DoD’s faction-ridden organization. Following
his election, the five-star general appointed a committee headed by Nelson A.
Rockefeller to conduct a thorough review of the department’s organization.66
The committee’s recommendations focused on the defense secretary’s author-
ity, bypassing the thorny issue of JCS reform altogether. Eisenhower incorpo-
rated the committee’s recommendations into Reorganization Plan No. , which

he submitted to Congress.
Although numerous representatives opposed the plan, it went into effect
on June , , when neither house took disapproving action within sixty
days. The plan increased the number of assistant secretaries of defense from
three to nine and abolished various boards and assigned their functions to the
defense secretary. It gave the JCS chairman authority to manage the Joint Staff
and approve its members and placed the service secretaries in the operational
chain of command—a change designed by Eisenhower to strengthen civilian
control.
Eisenhower continued to press unsuccessfully for improved control over
the services and a more unified perspective by the JCS. In October, , the
Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite thrust DoD’s performance into the spot-
light. The president seized this opportunity to direct another review of defense
organization.
In January, , Eisenhower listed defense reorganization as his first pri-
ority in his State of the Union address. Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy es-
tablished a panel—headed by his assistant, Charles A. Coolidge—that proposed
to increase the defense secretary’s power, strengthen the JCS chairman, re-
move the service secretaries and chiefs from the chain of command, and place
an enlarged Joint Staff more under the chairman’s control.
In transmitting his recommendations in a message to Congress in April,
Eisenhower expressed his vision for DoD: “Separate ground, sea, and air warfare
is gone forever. If ever again we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all
elements, with all services, as one single concentrated effort. Peacetime prepara-
tory and organizational activity must conform to this fact. Strategic and tactical
planning must be completely unified, combat forces organized into unified com-
mands, each equipped with the most efficient weapons systems that science can
develop, singly led and prepared to fight as one, regardless of service.”67
Much of Congress reacted negatively. Representative Carl Vinson, pronavy
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), accused the bill of
tending toward a “Prussian-type supreme command.” He called it an “open
invitation” for a powerful military man to seize control of the government. The
HASC deleted or watered down numerous provisions, but the Senate convinced
the House to accommodate some of Eisenhower’s objections to the House bill.68
The resulting Defense Reorganization Act of  strengthened the de-
fense secretary’s authority, especially over the military departments. It elevated
the status of the JCS chairman and nearly doubled the Joint Staff’s size, but
deleted the chairman’s authority to manage the Joint Staff, granted in .
Although the act gave the unified commanders full operational command of
assigned forces and removed the military departments from the operational
chain of command, the services never complied with these provisions.
The , , and  reorganizations thus took steps toward a unified
establishment, but none addressed the inherent weakness of the JCS: its con-
trol by the services. Defense organization continued to favor the interests of
the services too much and the broader interests of national defense too little.
For almost thirty years after , administrations did not request and Congress
did not enact significant statutory changes to defense organization. The inabil-
ity of war hero Dwight Eisenhower—with his great prestige and influence in
military affairs—to overcome opposition to reform convinced others not to chal-
lenge the unyielding alliance between the services and Congress. Although the
service-dominated structure repeatedly demonstrated its flaws over the next three
decades, administrations studied, but did not propose, reforms.
During his campaign for president, Kennedy commissioned an advisory
committee on defense organization chaired by Sen. Stuart Symington (D-Mis-
souri), the first air force secretary. Like previous reports, Symington’s found
that the services’ excessive role “must be corrected. At present, defense plan-
ning represents at best a series of compromised positions among the military
services.”69 The report’s radical solutions—centralize power in the defense sec-
retary and a chairman of a joint military staff, consolidate combat forces in
four unified commands, eliminate the JCS and military departments—gener-
ated widespread criticism. Moreover, the incoming administration never seri-
ously considered them because Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara believed
his own management reforms would fix Pentagon problems.70
Within three months of his inauguration, Kennedy experienced firsthand
the dismal quality of military advice when the JCS botched its review of Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency (CIA) plans for an American-sponsored landing by
anti-Castro Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy was especially disillu-
sioned with the advice from “his own branch of the service, the Navy, and its
chief.” The president recalled asking Adm. Arleigh Burke, “Will this plan
work?” and the CNO had said, “As far as we’ve been able to check it out, the
plan is good.” The invasion ended in disaster. Concerned by the poor quality
of the JCS’s advice, Kennedy “inserted [retired general] Maxwell Taylor be-
tween himself and the Joint Chiefs of Staff” as his military and intelligence
adviser.71
The Vietnam War magnified DoD’s institutional shortcomings, especially
the JCS’s inability to formulate quality advice and the absence of unified com-
mand in the field. Emotional controversies, such as charges of undue civilian
interference, obscured organizational lessons. General David C. Jones, a subse-
quent JCS chairman, called the conflict “perhaps our worst example of con-
fused objectives and unclear responsibilities, both in Washington and in the
field.” Unity of effort did not exist in the theater; each service “considered Viet-
nam its own war and sought to carve out a large mission for itself.” Even
during the  evacuation of Saigon, “responsibility was split between two
separate commands, one on land and one at sea; each of these set a different
‘H-hour,’ which caused confusion and delays.”72
On January , , North Korean naval vessels seized the USS Pueblo,
an intelligence-gathering ship, approximately fifteen miles off the North Ko-
rean coast. American forces were unable to respond during the four hours avail-
able for decisive action. Inadequate command arrangements were cited as the
principal reason: “There was no effective unity of command below CINCPAC
[commander in chief, Pacific Command], and those links in the chain of com-
mand, CINCPAC and above, who possessed sufficient authority were too far
away to influence the situation.”73
In the midst of Vietnam, Pres. Richard M. Nixon appointed a Blue Ribbon
Defense Panel to evaluate DoD’s organization. The panel’s report, issued in July,
, highlighted many problems described ten years earlier in Senator
Symington’s report and recommended changes “almost as radical.” The Nixon
administration adopted only three lesser recommendations of the panel’s fif-
teen proposals on organization. This inaction “resulted from political obstacles
in Congress and the military services at a time of Vietnam exigencies and de-
clining budgets.”74
An act of piracy on the high seas on May , , two weeks after the
evacuation of Saigon, again drew American attention to Asia. “Have been fired
upon and boarded by Cambodian armed forces,” announced a Mayday mes-
sage from the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez. “Ship is being towed to
unknown Cambodian port.” Once the thirty-nine-man crew anchored the ship
near Koh Tang Island, the Cambodians moved them to the mainland. After a
slow response, the American military recaptured the crewless Mayaguez, and
the Cambodians released the seamen. American forces needlessly attacked Koh
Tang Island and suffered eighteen dead and fifty wounded without achieving a
single military objective. A critique concluded: “The Mayaguez incident, while
it may have been some sort of political success, was a military failure.”75
In , Pres. Jimmy Carter directed DoD to reexamine its organization.
Five reports resulted. Despite their quality and persuasiveness, the administra-
tion did not act on the recommendations. The best-known report, National
Military Command Structure Study authored by Richard C. Steadman, reinforced
earlier observations that the JCS organization “virtually precludes effective
addressal of those issues involving allocation of resources among the services
. . . except to agree that they should be increased without consideration of re-
source constraints.”76
Although reorganization studies focused on operational problems, disunity
of effort was also glaring in administrative and support areas. Carter’s defense
secretary, Harold Brown, cited examples of wasteful practices that seriously
weakened war readiness during his tenure: “U.S. Army and Air Force units in
Europe have difficulty communicating because their systems were developed

separately and are not interoperable. Because the Navy and Air Force use differ-
ent refueling equipment, tanker aircraft of one cannot refuel fighters of the
other without an equipment change. Until recently, even that option was not
available.”77
The Carter administration’s weak political standing on military matters
contributed to inaction on reorganization. The president’s prestige took another
blow on April , , when the military raid to rescue fifty-three Americans
held hostage in Tehran failed. After the mission was aborted, eight servicemen
died when a marine-piloted helicopter and air force transport plane collided on
a desert landing strip.
The failed Iranian rescue mission “clearly marked the decline of American
military prestige and confidence.”78 National defense became a key issue in the
 presidential election. Ronald Reagan’s platform, responding to the public’s
mood, called for revitalizing the military. It promised “an immediate increase
in defense spending.”79
But the Republican platform devoted only five sentences to defense man-
agement and organization. It criticized “the ill-informed, capricious intrusions”
of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and program analysts in the
Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) on planning and budget issues. “Or-
derly planning by the military services has become impossible,” the platform
declared. By attacking central authority and promoting service prerogatives,
the platform positioned Reagan and his party on the side of those who opposed
a more integrated DoD.
Following his landslide victory, Reagan kept his campaign promise to pour
money into defense hardware and operations. But correcting the Pentagon’s
problems required more than additional funds. Former Secretary of Defense
Melvin R. Laird soon would argue that “neglect of organizational issues . . . is
self defeating. Without an effective command structure, no level of defense
spending will be sufficient to meet the needs of the nation’s security.”80
Reagan and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger did not understand that
the excessive power of the four services was undermining the unity required to
defend the nation’s interests. They did not perceive how service separatism con-
tributed to operational failures, most notably and costly in Vietnam, but also in
the tragic Pueblo and Mayaguez incidents and failed Iranian hostage rescue
mission. They ignored the penetrating critiques of the Hoover Commission,
Rockefeller Committee, Coolidge panel, Symington report, Blue Ribbon Defense
Panel, and Steadman report.
Since World War II, efforts to integrate the military progressed only when
a president and defense secretary provided forceful and visionary leadership.
Not only were Reagan and Weinberger not prepared to play this role, their policy
sympathized with service aspirations. Without presidential leadership, improve-

ments in defense organization appeared impossible. Service supremacists had
erected nearly impenetrable barriers to change. Congress—guardian of the
law—liked the role ceded to it by the diffusion of Pentagon power. A reform
campaign mounted against such opposition seemed hopeless.
Despite the odds, one general was prepared to try.
Jones Breaks Ranks 33
CHAPTER 2
Jones
Breaks Ranks
Everyone admires courage and the greenest garlands
are for those who possess it.
—John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
G eneral David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, anxiously awaited
his chance to testify to the House Armed Services Committee. His boss,
Defense Secretary Cap Weinberger, seated to his right, was finishing a long open-
ing statement. Jones knew his testimony would annoy Weinberger, infuriate
Pentagon colleagues, and spark intense criticism. Cognizant that he was about
to start a holy war over the military’s most sacred turf, Jones just hoped that
his testimony would compel Congress to act.1
Weinberger and Jones were appearing during a closed session on Febru-
ary , —four years to the day before Goldwater’s and Nunn’s pivotal meet-
ing in the Tank. Seated in the HASC’s large, ornate main hearing room, the
secretary and the general were presenting their initial budget statements. This
hearing was normally open to the public, but the committee had agreed to
close it because the president had not yet submitted his budget to Congress.2 A
closed hearing provided a favorable environment for Jones to “drop his bomb-
shell.”3 Without making headlines, he could describe the poor functioning of
the JCS and urge the enactment of legislation to reform the nation’s senior
military body.4
Jones had decided that he could not delay this message any longer. This
might be his last appearance before the HASC. In less than five months he would
complete his second two-year term as chairman and retire. By then he would
have a total of eight years of service as a JCS member, longer than anyone in
the body’s forty-year history. Jones would have another opportunity to urge
reform when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee several
days later, but he expected most SASC members to be hostile to his proposals.
He believed the HASC would provide a more favorable audience.
The general had told Weinberger and the service chiefs that he planned to
express “concerns about how the system operated,” but only a few close advis-
ers knew what Jones was about to say.5 Even Jones did not know how he would
proceed until the last minute. “Driving to the hearing, I was collecting my
thoughts on how to do it.”6
Jones figured his testimony might chill his “cool, never close relationship”
with Weinberger, but he did not think the secretary would fire him.7 Although
strong-willed, Weinberger lacked forcefulness on personnel matters.
A Harvard-educated lawyer and courteous gentleman, Weinberger was a
longtime friend and confidant of President Reagan. His vast government expe-
rience did not include assignments in defense, where he acknowledged his nov-
ice status. Despite Weinberger’s pleasant demeanor, stubbornness ranked as
his most prominent trait. Once he made up his mind, he seldom changed it.
Jones anticipated criticism and even personal attacks from active and re-
tired officers. The bitter defense debates during the Carter administration had
hardened him to adverse commentary. “I had enough criticism when I was
chairman that I enjoyed stirring up the pot a little bit,” Jones confided.8
When Weinberger reached the end of his statement, Jones’s H-hour ar-
rived. Peering down from the massive, three-tiered wooden rostrum that seated
all forty-five HASC members, Chairman Mel Price inquired, “Before we ask any
questions of the secretary, General Jones, do you have a statement you would
like to make to the committee?” Jones—tall, fit, polished, and more youthful
appearing than his age of sixty—looked like a modern aviator general.9
The committee members sat there unaware of the historic stand Jones was
about to take. The nation’s top officer would break ranks with Pentagon col-
leagues and ask Congress to reform his organization. Not since Lt. Gen. J. Lawton
Collins introduced War Department proposals in  had a serving officer ini-
tiated an effort to reform the JCS.10
“I look forward to testifying on the budget issues,” Jones began, “however,
there is one subject I would like to mention briefly here.”11 The general took a
deep breath. “It is not sufficient to have just resources, dollars and weapon sys-
tems; we must also have an organization which will allow us to develop the
proper strategy, necessary planning, and the full warfighting capability.”
Then, in nine words, Jones started a war over defense organization that
would last for five years: “We do not have an adequate organizational structure
today.” He quickly added, “at least in my judgment.”
“We have made improvements,” Jones said, but those “improvements have
5. General David C. Jones during his service as air force chief of staff.
(U.S. Air Force photo.)
only been made at the margin; we need to do much more. . . . To be able to fight
in today’s environment . . . will require the concerted efforts of all four services.
The services can’t operate alone.”
Of the JCS, Jones said: “We are basically a committee system. . . . Commit-
tees are very good in a deliberative process, but they are notoriously poor in
trying to run things, particularly the committee that I head, because of some
unique characteristics.” The general, using the word characteristics as a euphe-
mism for problems, cited five “characteristics.”
“Starting in World War II, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began to operate on the
basis of unanimity. For an action to be taken, there had to be unanimous con-
sent to that action.” He noted that in the National Security Act of , “if the
chiefs cannot come to an agreement, a unanimous agreement among the five
of us, we then inform the secretary of defense and, as appropriate, the presi-
dent.” These pressures for unanimity resulted in “the least common denomi-
nator in order to get some sort of agreement.”
The second characteristic Jones cited was the five staff levels through which
JCS papers passed. He explained that the services exercise “almost a de facto veto
at each level in that each service knows that ultimately unanimity is the goal.”
He next discussed the “great institutional pressures on people within

the services,” and indirectly raised the service chiefs’ conflict of interest: “It
is very difficult for a chief as head of a service to say more resources ought
to go to another service rather than his own.” He described the “great per-
sonnel turnover” on the Joint Staff, where officers served for an average of
only two years. He also expressed concern about the “few rewards for joint
service.”
The general told the committee that in the time he had left in office, he
would “work with my colleagues first because many of these things can be
solved by the chiefs unanimously agreeing to change. I will then work with
the administration—the secretary of defense, and the president—which may
include submitting legislative proposals.”
Jones closed by offering five recommendations. Although he described them
as “specific,” he provided only broad directions. The general proposed strength-
ening “the role of the chairman.” In preparing joint papers, Jones said “service
staff involvement . . . should be limited to inputs rather than debates.” He rec-
ommended that “the Joint Chiefs should receive their advice on joint issues from
the joint system rather than from their own service staff.” Jones said he would
“give the commanders in chief in the field, those whom we hold responsible for
fighting the forces, an increasing role.” Finally, he proposed to “enhance the
preparations and rewards for joint duty.”
Jones concluded his eight-minute statement by saying, “I look forward to
working with the committee, Mr. Chairman, on this important subject in the
months ahead.”
America’s top officer settled back in his chair. He had done it. These prob-
lems needed to be aired. The military brotherhood would not like it, but the
Pentagon had to overcome crippling service parochialism. The general thought
his statement might intrigue members, but he did not expect them to ask many
questions. Congressmen come to such hearings with prepared questions in their
areas of interest. Few pose questions pertaining to issues about which they
know and care little. That was fine with Jones. He feared that an overwhelming
response would create a firestorm, alarm Weinberger, and cause him to be-
come an overt opponent. The general just wanted his ideas to catch hold with
someone on the committee.12
Member after member posed questions without a single reference to his
testimony. Finally, Cong. Donald J. Mitchell (R–New York) asked, “Do the me-
chanics of instituting the changes that you recommended to the Joint Chiefs
structure have to be legislative?”13
“The chiefs could agree to many of them themselves,” replied Jones, “some
would be addressed within the administration; and there would be some legis-
lative changes which I would propose to the Congress, particularly pertaining
to limitations on the Joint Staff.”
After nearly four hours of testimony, that brief exchange marked the only
time a member raised the issue. Jones worried that the hearing would end with-
out anyone really following up on his testimony.14 At last, near the end of the
afternoon session, Cong. Ike Skelton (D-Missouri), a military history buff, ze-
roed in on Jones’s remarks. “When . . . did you become concerned about the
operation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?” the junior HASC member asked.15
“I have had ever since I was a colonel, when I first came to Washington,
some fundamental concerns about the organization of the Joint Chiefs,” the
general revealed. “It was about a year ago that I decided to take on the task of
making major changes.”
In response to another question from Skelton, Jones disclosed that he had
commissioned a study of the JCS’s organization. He also announced that he
was “going to go public in the next couple of weeks with a fairly extensive ar-
ticle that will outline the problems and my views on the problems.”
Skelton asked if it would be possible for the committee to be briefed on the
study and Jones’s recommendations. “I would be available in the days ahead to
brief you,” the general replied. “I would even expect or recommend committee
hearings.”
Skelton understood the dynamic at work: “This seems to me to be a rather
courageous thing for you to do. I think it is something that should get the ut-
most attention from this committee and from Congress.”
Jones planned for his article, “Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change,” to
appear in the February, , issue of Directors & Boards, a business journal.16
Like his closed-session testimony, he selected this obscure forum in order to
avoid generating too much attention. “Right at that point, I didn’t want to ig-
nite too great a fire, but I wanted to get started.”17 Jones forwarded drafts of his
article to higher authority. Deputy Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci wrote
across the front of his copy, “Dave, I skimmed this, since I had read original.
Looks good to me.”18
In the article, Jones skillfully elaborated on the five problems he had cited
in his congressional testimony, but much of his message was implied, not di-
rect. Knowing that Pentagon colleagues would blast him, Jones attempted to
minimize the effects of their explosion by avoiding blunt criticisms.
The article chronicled the two-hundred-year history of “enforced diffusion
of military authority” and resulting deficiencies. Jones initially discussed de
facto service vetoes during the staffing of JCS papers, and pressures for una-
nimity. He revealed that harmonizing disparate service positions often produced
papers that are “watered down or well waffled.” He also lamented that the JCS,
“understandably reluctant to forward disagreements . . . invest much time and
effort to accommodate differing views of the chiefs.” Jones decried the “inad-
equate cross-service and joint experience in our military, from the top down.”19
Jones called the service chiefs’ conflict of interest a “spokesman-statesman”

dilemma. He said he did not see how the existing arrangement could work given
the resource and mission issues that heightened this conflict. He called it “un-
reasonable to expect the service chiefs to take one position as service advocate
. . . and a totally different position in the joint arena.”
Although Jones’s article provided more information on his recommenda-
tions, the outlines of his proposals were just beginning to take shape. To
strengthen the chairman, Jones envisioned removing service chiefs from mak-
ing recommendations on resources and missions. To further empower the chair-
man, he added a new recommendation: “The chairman should be authorized a
deputy.” The general cited continuity during the chairman’s absence and his need
for assistance as reasons. To limit service staff involvement in the joint system,
he advised: “We should abolish the current system. The role of service staffs can
and should be reduced to providing information inputs.” Jones proposed switch-
ing each service chief ’s reliance for advice on joint matters away from his own
staff to the Joint Staff, but did not explain how that change would be engineered.
Jones discussed two changes to increase the role of unified commanders.
He envisioned the chairman “in consultation with the combatant command-
ers” providing the interservice perspective on resources and missions. He also
foresaw “strengthening of the unified commander’s role with respect to his ser-
vice component commanders” whose “attention is often drawn more to ser-
vice issues than to interservice coordination problems.”
Regarding the need to “broaden the training, experience, and rewards for
joint duty,” Jones recommended interservice exchanges of junior officers, up-
graded preparation, improved education, and making joint assignments ca-
reer enhancing. Recognizing the services’ total control of personnel matters,
he observed, “It is difficult to see how present patterns can be changed, how-
ever, without some influence by the chairman on the selection and promotion
of officers.”
Despite Jones’s indirect problem descriptions and vague proposals, the ar-
ticle presented a clear message: Jones advocated strengthening the position of
joint officers—especially the chairman, unified commanders, and members of
the Joint Staff. Service chiefs and their staffs would be assigned lesser roles.
Shortly after testifying on Capitol Hill, Jones abandoned his low-profile ap-
proach. He decided to release his article earlier and more visibly by agreeing to
its mid-February publication in a prominent defense magazine, Armed Forces
Journal.
Jones also discussed his proposals with reporters on February . The me-
dia jumped on the story. John Chancellor provided the first coverage that evening
on the NBC Nightly News, observing that Jones “thinks the organization of the
Joint Chiefs is cumbersome [and] in urgent need of modernization—too much
interservice rivalry.”20
The next morning, all major newspapers carried articles on Jones’s views.
The Washington Post, under the headline “Chairman Asks Major Changes in
Joint Chiefs,” characterized Jones’s action as “an unprecedented call for major
reform of his own organization.” “Fierce opposition to the plan is likely,” the Wall
Street Journal predicted. “The individual military services aren’t likely to want to
give up any of their influence.” The Journal also saw prospects for resistance on
Capitol Hill: “Some members of Congress may oppose the plan, arguing that in-
vesting such authority in one individual could lead to a single, all-powerful mili-
tary command.”21
Over the next two weeks, newspapers continued reporting on Jones’s pro-
posals, and a dozen or so favorable editorials appeared. The New York Times cov-
ered the issue most frequently and extensively. On February , it noted the
unusual nature of the chairman’s effort: “Rarely have military officers, bred in
the tradition of keeping their own counsel except when asked by properly con-
stituted civilian authority, undertaken so public a campaign for change.” A Times
article on March  commented prophetically: “In the Pentagon and in civilian
circles studying the military establishment it is assumed that General Jones has
opened a controversy that will continue for years before something is done.”22
Believing that media attention to Jones’s criticisms might erode the public
consensus for the defense buildup, Weinberger alerted Reagan. In his February
 weekly report, the secretary summarized Jones’s criticisms and proposals
and offered his assessment: “While little is new in the proposal, it is receiving
emphasis at a much higher level than before. Past blue ribbon panels have made
similar recommendations, and while most agree that change is overdue, it has
been slow in coming. Many of these changes could be made without new legis-
lation. A few, including strengthening the role of the chairman, require legis-
lative change and the specifics are still being discussed.”23
In closing, Weinberger concluded: “General Jones has not yet submitted to
me a formal recommendation for change. When he does, I will provide you
with an assessment of its value and a recommendation regarding the
administration’s stance.” This closing seemed disingenuous. Jones could not
submit a formal proposal without unanimous JCS support. In addition, Jones’s
plea to Congress meant that he had given up working the issue with
Weinberger.24
Although his report had a favorable tone, Weinberger remained noncom-
mittal. To avoid connection with Jones’s ideas, he struck from a draft of his
memorandum a phrase that said Jones’s article had been “previously reviewed
by me and White House staff members.”25 Weinberger did not hint that he had
misgivings about Jones’s campaign and feared its consequences for the
administration’s defense agenda.
Significantly increasing the defense budget dominated the administration’s
defense efforts. Weinberger had made that task a personal crusade. In fulfilling
the mandate from the  election, Reagan initially asked Congress to add $.
billion to Carter’s fiscal year (FY)  budget. The new president then proposed
a $. billion increase for the following fiscal year. Congress complied with
both requests, reducing them by less than  percent. The budget proposal for FY
—the one that Weinberger and Jones had just presented to the HASC—
would jump spending by another $. billion to $. billion.
Determined to continue this growth rate, Weinberger feared that Jones’s
reform agenda would slow momentum.26 However, before the secretary openly
opposed reform, he apparently wanted to see if the president expressed an
interest.
When Jones’s recommendations became public, I was a senior SASC staff mem-
ber. Having spent ten years as a “whiz kid” systems analyst in OSD, I was
acquainted with the problems Jones had identified. My four years on the SASC
staff convinced me that the majority of members would reject the general’s
recommendations. Many members had strong ties to the services—especially
the navy and Marine Corps—and were certain to support the predominantly
antireform views of their uniformed friends.
Although I had to project how most senators would react to the message, I
knew how they felt about the messenger. The committee was not enamored
with Jones. Many members associated him with what they viewed as the failed
defense policies of the Carter administration. Fifteen months earlier, in the weeks
following Reagan’s election in November, , Republican SASC members
discussed with the new administration whether the president should replace
Jones. The rationale for removing the chairman centered on his support for
ratification of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) II agreement and
Panama Canal treaty and his failure while air force chief of staff to lead a fight
against Carter’s cancellation of the B- bomber.
Reagan’s Pentagon transition team leaked word of Jones’s impending
ouster to the Washington Star, which declared, “REAGAN TO DISMISS GEN.
JONES” in a two-inch headline across its front page on December . The sub-
title read, “Wants Own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” The article reported the
conservatives’ claim that Jones “was little more than a rubber stamp for Presi-
dent Carter’s defense policies.” In response to charges that firing the chair-
man would politicize the position, Reagan aides “contend that Jones himself
‘politicized’ the office by being a willing lobbyist for and defender of the Carter
White House.”27
At the time, Jones was visiting Israel on an official trip. The general’s Pen-
tagon office called his room in the King David Hotel, overlooking the old walled
city of Jerusalem. “Chairman, we hate to tell you the bad news,” said a staff
officer, “but the Washington Star headline right across the top of the front page—
the whole headline—says President-elect Reagan is going to dismiss you.”28
“Where better to be when you’re crucified than in Jerusalem,” Jones re-

sponded.
The general told his spokesman to say, “While General Jones serves at the
pleasure of the president, he intends to finish his term and will not resign vol-
untarily.” If Reagan wanted the general out, he would have to take the unprec-
edented step of firing him.
The incumbent defense secretary, Democrat Harold Brown, and a prede-
cessor, Republican James R. Schlesinger, blasted the idea of firing Jones. Con-
trary to views expressed by Reagan aides, both were convinced that such a move
would politicize the top military post. “What concerns me here is that what
may be at issue is a discharge for loyalty to civilian authority, for living by the
rules,” Brown said. “If that’s done, it would be sending the wrong message to
all military officers . . . that they have to anticipate the future political point of
view and be loyal to that rather than subordinate to civilian superiors.”29
In an article appearing on the Washington Post’s editorial page, Schlesinger
observed: “The charge against General David Jones was rather novel—not
dereliction of duty but fulfillment of duty to his civilian superiors. Jones ap-
parently had been insufficiently insubordinate to his commander in chief.” The
commentary put the incoming administration on the defensive and forced it
to reconsider the plan to fire Jones.30 Finally, on February , Secretary
Weinberger announced that President Reagan had decided to keep Jones un-
til his term ended sixteen months later. If the president and secretary could
have, they would have selected someone else. Years later, Weinberger contin-
ued to refer to Jones as the “holdover” chairman.31
Knowing that others were uneasy with him was not a new feeling for Jones.
Throughout his career he had made the military bureaucracy anxious with
his penchant for fixing problems. Not only were colleagues annoyed by Jones’s
rock-the-boat style, they also had trouble anticipating his next move. He per-
plexed Gen. Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, the army chief of staff when Jones was JCS
chairman: “He’s a very complex individual. It’s hard to figure out sometime
just what he has in mind.”32 Jones’s private nature, independence, and nontra-
ditional attitudes complicated efforts to decipher him.
Despite the lack of a college degree, Jones was well educated and well read.
He also exhibited superb analytical skills. The first time I heard Jones’s name
was in connection with his bent for first-rate analysis. In the summer of ,
after Jones’s appointment as air force chief of staff, my boss, the assistant secre-
tary of defense for program analysis and evaluation, met with the general.
Afterward, the assistant secretary reported to his staff: “Jones is a breath of
fresh air. He takes an analytical approach to issues. He’s really a forward
thinker.” Jones earned “a reputation as one of the new breed in the military
hierarchy” as “an administrator, a planner, a shrewd bureaucratic manager
more intent on planning budgets than manning weapons.”33
Jones’s quiet, humble, even-keeled personality and wry sense of humor be-
lied his drive to make improvements. In contrast to the military’s conservative
tradition, Jones welcomed change. His insights into the ills of complex systems
and organizations enabled him to develop a vision for change. Some believed
Jones was selected to serve as chairman mainly for “the problem-solving mana-
gerial talent that he had demonstrated . . . as head of the Air Force and prior to
that as commander in chief of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe.”34 As air force chief
of staff, he substantially reduced headquarters staffs by reorganizing commands.
In Europe, Jones created a small operational and planning headquarters that
integrated allied air forces into a cohesive organization.
Jones pressed his staff to match his commitment to making improvements.
An air force general said, “I’ve never seen him slam a desk or shout at anybody.
But at the same time, he is exasperated with people about half the time. It’s
hard to work for him if you’re mediocre. He demands that everybody be as good
as he is—and that’s pretty tough.”
When Jones encountered roadblocks in the JCS arena, he worked outside
normal channels or convened informal groups. The marine commandant, Gen.
Robert H. Barrow, complained that Jones “tends to be secretive and ad hoc.”35
Jones’s improvisations evoked stronger feelings from other senior officers. One
labeled him “a two-faced son-of-a-bitch.” Another described Jones as “the most
manipulative bastard, cynical, self-aggrandizing man I’ve ever met.”36
Given the frequent criticism, Jones needed a sense of humor, and he re-
portedly had a good one. Time reported a well-known story during Jones’s ser-
vice as air force chief: “When a USAF airperson won a nude beauty contest in
Florida last year, some officials nervously brought the matter to Jones’ atten-
tion during a staff conference. After a report on the incident was read, there
was a moment of silence. Jones settled the question by observing, ‘Well, at least
she wasn’t in uniform.’”37
The Carter administration was not an easy one in which to serve as JCS
chairman. Defense experts, including many officers, repeatedly disagreed with
the president’s policies. Jones battled within the administration, but much to
the consternation of colleagues, he did not disagree with the president in pub-
lic. Carter’s decision to cancel the B- bomber exemplified Jones’s approach.
“There was absolutely no ambiguity about where Jones stood,” an official said
about the general’s support for the B-. “But when the decision was made, he
decided to fully support the commander-in-chief and not be party to a civilian-
military effort to overturn the decision in Congress.”38
Time titled its article on Jones’s selection to serve as chairman “Team Player
for the Joint Chiefs.”39 Jones agreed with that description, adding, “That is the
best way to get things done and to have influence within the administration.”40
Jones adhered to his team-player philosophy throughout the troubled years
under Carter and during his initial reform efforts. But Jones’s inability to fix
joint system defects caused him to do something he had never done before. He
broke ranks. The general had always saluted when superiors made decisions
he did not favor. But not this time. This cause was too important to the nation’s
security and the military’s professionalization. The general, who had been a
maverick inside and a team player outside, now became a maverick outside.
Although Jones’s call for reform came during his last year as chairman, he
was convinced of the need much earlier. For years, he had believed the joint
chiefs would reform themselves. Eventually, he concurred with Rear Adm. Alfred
Thayer Mahan’s conviction that no service could agree to give up sovereignty,
but would have to have reorganization forced upon it from outside.41
Jones’s concerns about the JCS dated back to  and his assignment as
an aide to Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, then four-star commander of the Strategic
Air Command (SAC).42 By that tour’s beginning, Jones had served in uniform
for thirteen years. After graduating from high school in , he attended
the University of North Dakota and Minot State College until his enlistment
in the Army Air Forces in . Jones never formally completed his college
education.
LeMay—the model for Gen. “Buck” Turgidson in the  movie Dr.
Strangelove—provided Jones a different, but valuable education. At a young age,
Jones learned about the Byzantine workings of the military bureaucracy. LeMay,
whom Jones refers to as “my mentor,”43 told his lieutenant colonel aide, “Your
first job is to learn, and second is to serve, and don’t mix up your priorities.”
The general ensured that Jones attended all high-level meetings and reviewed
key Washington correspondence.44
Two years after leaving SAC, Jones attended the National War College,
where classmates, whose Pentagon tours had made them cynics and skeptics,
told tales about the convoluted JCS processes. After the war college, Jones be-
came part of the Pentagon bureaucracy. His Air Staff job included being “the
huckster for the B- bomber,” the program that eventually produced the B-.
When Defense Secretary McNamara opposed the program, Air Force Chief of
Staff General LeMay, Jones’s old boss, sought the support of the other chiefs.
Lieutenant General David A. Burchinal, air force deputy chief of staff for
operations, told Jones, “We need a thick study on the need for the B-.”
“How thick?” Jones asked.
“The Washington phone book.”
Jones understood that LeMay and Burchinal wanted a big study that they
could wave around. He and a colleague spent all night just putting papers to-
gether. “In case somebody asked for the study, it had to say something about
the B-, but really it was nothing but a collection of papers that we put circu-
lar binders on.”
Jones attended the Tank session “when LeMay and Burchinal waved the
books.” Watching them claim without challenge that those books proved the
need for the B-, Jones thought, This is a charade. He was further dismayed
when the other joint chiefs, caught between LeMay and McNamara, “waffled
their way out of that fight.”
In , during a seven-month tour in Vietnam, where Jones served ini-
tially as the Seventh Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for operations and later as
its vice commander, he observed rampant service parochialism in action. It pro-
duced “at least six different air wars: Navy in the north, Air Force in the north,
strategic one, Air Force in the south, Vietnamese, and Army helicopters.”
While commanding the Second Air Force in Louisiana in , Jones saw
why the joint system remained unreformed. When President Nixon’s Blue Rib-
bon Defense Panel submitted its report, the air force asked Jones to come to
Washington to rebut the joint system part of the report and argue that it should
not be strengthened. Jones told Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John D. Ryan “that
I felt the joint system ought to be strengthened, and he said, ‘You may be right,
but this is not the way to do it.’” Jones followed orders. Given the emotion sur-
rounding this subject, he knew that he couldn’t change the chief ’s mind.
In , Jones assumed command of U.S. Air Forces Europe, a component
of the U.S. European Command. During that three-year tour, he observed the
power of the services and the weakness of the unified command. “I had three
bosses: American unified commander, NATO regional commander, and Air
Force chief. The chief had the greatest influence on me because he assigned my
people, gave them jobs, and had the money.”
In , Secretary Schlesinger selected Jones to serve as air force chief of
staff. Post-Vietnam problems beset his service, and Jones focused his attention
on correcting them. Of his JCS responsibilities, he confessed: “It bored me a
great deal to go down there to the Tank, to sit there. I was a good soldier, and I
would go when I was in town. So, I attended as well as anybody and partici-
pated as well as others, but my heart wasn’t in it.”
In , President Carter nominated Jones to serve as JCS chairman. He
had already acted as chairman for four months because his predecessor, Gen.
George S. Brown, also an air force officer, was dying of cancer. However, before
the president could appoint Jones to the top job, the Senate had to advise and
consent to his appointment. During Jones’s nomination hearing in May, ,
Sen. Sam Nunn, a bright, young Democrat from Georgia, questioned him on
JCS performance. The senator’s perceptiveness impressed the general.45
Nunn told the nominee, “Since I have been here I have never felt that the
Joint Chiefs function very well . . . Basically they are service heads who come
together to ratify the decisions of the individual services and that very seldom
do the Joint Chiefs take positions that would differ with one of the individual
services. I will admit my view is not shared by all and probably not by you.”46
Nunn asked Jones if he had “any plans for the operation of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff which would differ from the current operations.”
Jones sympathized with Nunn’s statement, but he responded carefully on

this explosive subject: “First, I recognize there is a conflict of interest being a
service chief and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, I have found it
invaluable to have the members of the Joint Chiefs, except for the chairman, to
be service chiefs, because you really stay up to date on what is going on . . . on
balance there are more pluses than minuses.”
The general added, “I plan to work with my colleagues to do what we can
to improve the functions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” although he believed “on
many of these issues affecting national security, that the chiefs rise above their
own service interests.”
Nunn replied skeptically to the general’s “theoretical concept” that the JCS
“rise above service rivalry . . . I don’t think it has ever been that way. I am not
saying it is worse now. I don’t think it is. I don’t think it ever will be that way.”
Nunn urged Jones “to address those issues and to the extent that it needs
any kind of legislative change I would hope you would keep us informed of it,
because I have a great deal of faith in you. Yet as an institution, I must frankly
say I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the Joint Chiefs, I do as individuals, but
not as an institution.”
Although Jones intended to alter the way the JCS operated, he underesti-
mated the resistance he would encounter. The new chairman found that the
chiefs wanted more influence, especially with the president on budget issues,
but they were not prepared to lessen their own independence as the price for
greater corporate influence. He proposed ideas to get each chief away from his
single-service perspective. “What about having an operations deputy from an-
other service and a half dozen officers from the joint system work joint issues
for you and prepare you for joint meetings?” Unwilling to diminish their roles
as service spokesmen, the chiefs were not interested. After repeated rejection
of his proposals, Jones began to think that outside authority would have to
mandate meaningful change.47
On April , , a military raid to rescue fifty-three Americans held captive
in Iran failed. Code-named Operation Eagle Claw,48 the mission was aborted
when only six of eight helicopters arrived at the rendezvous point in Iran, la-
beled “Desert One,” and one of those was broken. In departing, a helicopter
collided with a C- transport plane. Five airmen and three marines died in
the explosion, which destroyed both aircraft. The other five helicopters were
abandoned with valuable secret documents, weapons, and communications
gear on board.
The Pentagon commissioned two reports on the shocking failure: one by
the Joint Staff and the other by a Special Operations Review Group formed ex-
pressly for the inquiry. Admiral James L. Holloway, a former CNO, headed the
review group of six senior officers. The group’s charter—directing it to make no
6. The remains of a burned-out U.S. helicopeter lie in front of an

abandoned chopper at Desert One in Iran.
(Associated Press photo.)
mention of the president, White House, defense secretary, or JCS—limited it to

“tactical and technical matters.”49 The Joint Staff similarly focused on operational
and material deficiencies, such as “insufficient tactical and airborne satellite ra-
dio capability.”50 Although both reports provided insightful analyses, neither
addressed the overarching organizational problems that doomed the operation.
The complexity of the Iranian rescue mission would have challenged a well-
organized military proficient in both joint and special operations.51 The
Pentagon’s unpreparedness was so immense that even six months of organiz-
ing, planning, and training could not overcome institutional deficiencies. Ten
years after a similar raid into North Vietnam had failed to rescue American
prisoners of war from a prison on the outskirts of Hanoi—a raid that also took
six months to organize—DoD still did not have a joint organization capable of
carrying out the mission.52
The JCS and the mission commander, Maj. Gen. James B. Vaught, USA,
“had to start, literally, from the beginning to establish a joint task force, create
an organization, provide a staff, develop a plan, select the units, and train the
force before the first mission capability could be attained.”53 Absence of joint
doctrine and procedures and lack of cross-service experience by task force
officers and units compounded the difficulty of these ad hoc tasks. Even Vaught,
a top-flight, combat-tested Ranger, had no exposure to multiservice missions.54
Failure to train task force elements together further undermined unity of effort.
Each element trained under its own commander using its parent service’s pro-
cedures.55
The Joint Staff did not have a “staff planning element with expertise on
missions of this type,”56 and all five joint chiefs lacked special operations expe-
rience.57 A planning staff was created, but it was an ad hoc, inexperienced group
with unclear lines of authority and responsibility. The resulting structure was
“so confused and bureaucratic as to make communications among its mem-
bers difficult, and, in some cases, almost impossible.”58
An existing JCS contingency plan was rejected “as not being useful.”59 In
developing a new plan, the inexperienced Joint Staff planning element became
“totally preoccupied with the fear that the operation might be compromised
before the raid.”60 According to Jones, the staff knew that “if the Iranians had
fifteen-minutes of warning, they could disperse the hostages.”61 Obsessed by
operational security, the staff overcompensated: excessive compartmentaliza-
tion of the plan—restricting each participant’s knowledge to his or her part—
and bypassing normal reviews fragmented preparation and allowed concep-
tual flaws to go undiscovered.62
In the post-Vietnam drawdown, the air force neglected its responsibility to
provide long-range infiltration helicopters for special operations like the planned
raid. By , such air force helicopters were too few or unproven, forcing the
selection of eight navy RH-D mine countermeasures helicopters. Because
the helicopters would launch for the raid from an aircraft carrier, navy pilots
and marine copilots were initially designated to fly them even though they had
no training and experience for the low-level, terrain-hugging flights that a clan-
destine, nighttime insertion would require.63 The air force had ninety-six pilots
who were qualified and experienced in such operations. The decision not to use
the most capable of these pilots proved costly.
After the first rehearsal exposed serious pilot deficiencies, marines were
assigned to thirteen of the pilot and copilot seats. Two navy aviators and one
air force pilot filled the remaining seats. The choice was a great mistake. The
marine pilots “became lost, had difficulty in navigating, and failed to reach
Desert One on time and with the required number of helicopters.”64
The chaos and confusion at Desert One epitomized the Pentagon’s lack of
proficiency in joint operations. The joint task force had not established com-
mand and control procedures or clear lines of authority at Desert One. In the
darkness and haze of blowing sand and with the deafening roar of aircraft
engines, no way existed to determine “who was in charge.”65 The on-the-scene
commander, Col. James H. Kyle, USAF, spoke of “there being four command-
ers at the scene without visible identification, incompatible radios, and no
agreed-upon plan, not even a designated location for the commander.”66 Heli-
copter pilots later said they “did not know or recognize the authority of those
giving orders.”67
“The whole operation deserves considerable criticism,” said Jones. Years

later, he identified service separateness as the principal cause for the failed raid.
“I saw terrible problems in the services’ efforts to work with each other. My
director of operations on the Joint Staff, an army officer, knew little about the
army outside his branch and nothing about the other services. No existing or-
ganization could run the operation. Everybody gave it their best, but the fact
that we hadn’t been ingrained in working and training together proved insur-
mountable.”68
This debacle convinced Jones to seek outside help to reform the JCS. But the
failed raid had gravely wounded the administration. The president and defense
secretary could not muster sufficient support to take on a controversial issue.
Jones determined that he would have to wait until after the presidential elec-
tion. If the election produced a new administration, he would approach the in-
coming secretary. Alternatively, “If Carter had been reelected, Harold Brown
would have been willing to take on this battle.” In Brown’s view, a voter man-
date for a second term might create a favorable climate for a reform initiative.
On June , , two months after the failure in the desert, Jones appeared
at a SASC hearing on his nomination for a second two-year term as chairman.
This time, Sen. Strom Thurmond (R–South Carolina) questioned Jones about
the joint system. The general’s thinking on reform tactics was evolving. Jones
still envisioned the executive branch playing the central role. He did not see a
major role for Capitol Hill.
When Thurmond gave Jones the chance to talk about required improve-
ments, Jones stressed, “We need to be more joint. . . . We need to do much more
in being an integrated fighting force in the days ahead.” Although Jones had
considerable evidence of the services’ inability to operate together, he had the
failed Iranian rescue mission most in mind.69
Referring to reports of “so much jealousy between the different services,”
Thurmond wanted to know if Jones was satisfied with the situation.70
“No; I am not satisfied,” Jones responded. The general vaguely explained
that DoD’s organization resulted from a compromise, which “brings with it some
disadvantages.” He did not elaborate.
Jones was careful in articulating recommendations. Initially, he cited only
one noncontroversial idea: the need “to have even greater incentives for the
best people to go into joint jobs.”
Thurmond wanted to know more. He wanted Jones’s views on the role the
services should have in operations vis-à-vis the joint system.
Noting the impact of their control of the budget, Jones replied, “The ser-
vices have great influence on operations.” He diplomatically suggested, “I would
move toward an increased role for joint operations.”
Thurmond pressed Jones for specific recommendations. The senator would
not permit him to evade his questions.
“I would strengthen the role of the chairman,” Jones said. Concerned that
he would be accused of trying to build an empire, Jones noted that such a change
would require considerable time, so this strengthened role would apply to his
successor. Jones also said he thought the Joint Staff was too small. He cited the
potential for an enlarged staff to help the chairman play a greater budget role.
He also advocated “some increased independence for the Joint Staff from the
services.” Fearing that he had been too outspoken, Jones added that he was
“not suggesting major surgery now. I think that in an evolutionary way we
can make some improvements.”
Five months later, after Ronald Reagan’s election, Jones approached the secre-
tary of defense designate about reorganizing the JCS. “Weinberger initially in-
dicated he’d be interested in looking at my proposal,” the general recalled, but
“it was clear that he didn’t want to be involved in a fight that, in his judgment,
might sidetrack the budget buildup.”71
When Jones pressed Weinberger, the secretary said, “If we take on this is-
sue, they’ll think we’re all screwed up over here.”72
“We are all screwed up,” Jones answered.
Weinberger responded with “courteous silence.”73
Jones was determined to try to reform the JCS before he retired. Without
the secretary’s support, the general could not see a way to gain the president’s
endorsement. Jones decided to look to Congress for help.74
Near the end of January, , Jones met with and then wrote to Senator
Goldwater. His letter complained that tradition “requires a - vote on every
recommendation” of the JCS. “I would like for us to strengthen the role of the
military and, very frankly, the role of the chairman, in order for the system to
react more quickly and effectively, and for there to be less of a need for debate
and compromise on every issue.” Goldwater listened sympathetically but did
not respond to Jones’s letter.75
Jones’s inability to gain the support of Weinberger, Reagan, or Goldwater forced

him to reconsider internal means for fixing the JCS system. He decided that he
needed an in-depth, objective study that could attract support across the ser-
vices. The chairman’s authority to hire consultants offered a promising mecha-
nism. Normally, the top officer’s only source of independent analysis was the
Chairman’s Staff Group—five officers who worked solely for him. He could not
task the Joint Staff with a study. Only the JCS could. Even if Jones succeeded in
convincing his colleagues to commission a study, institutional weaknesses
would dilute the product’s candor. In contrast, a group of experienced consult-
ants could rigorously examine problems and recommend solutions. Jones also
had another reason: “I didn’t want Joint Chiefs reform to be a Jones crusade.
The consultants broadened the reform effort.”76
Jones knew what consultants to use. In  and , DoD had conducted
two large mobilization exercises, Nifty Nugget and Proud Spirit. Both the JCS
and OSD had used consultants to evaluate these exercises. Jones’s close friend,
William K. Brehm, had contributed significantly to the evaluation team’s work.
Jones wanted Brehm to head the JCS study.
The chairman planned that four retired officers—one from each service—
who had also served as exercise evaluators, would join Brehm. This group rep-
resented a  version of the Richardson Committee, which had examined
postwar organizational requirements for the JCS in  and . The study
team’s officers were Gen. Walter T. “Dutch” Kerwin, a former army vice chief
of staff; Gen. William V. McBride, a former air force vice chief; Gen. Samuel
Jaskilka, a former marine assistant commandant; and Adm. Frederick H. “Mike”
Michaelis, a former commander of the Naval Materiel Command. All four had
retired in , and the JCS had selected them as evaluators because of their
recent active duty, respect by service leaders, and reputation for being among
the most nonparochial officers.77
Brehm had earned the respect and admiration of many during his ten years
in senior Pentagon positions. He had served in three assistant secretary posi-
tions: one in the army and two in OSD. Brehm was an expert on defense organi-
zation and understood the inherent weaknesses of the joint system. Jones also
selected him because of his leadership style and reputation for honesty, selfless-
ness, and consideration. Knowing that service parochialism, emotion, and con-
troversy would challenge the group’s unity, Jones felt that Brehm could foster
trust and openness among the members of the study team.78
In a meeting on February , , Jones asked Brehm—then chairman
of the board of Systems Research and Applications Corporation, a consulting
firm—to develop a plan for evaluating JCS organization. He had envisioned a
two- to four-month study, but the group took eleven months—meeting only
once or twice per month—to complete its report. When Jones received the final
report in April, , only two months remained until his retirement.
Close relationships among the incumbent joint chiefs seemed to favor an
objective examination. Each service chief participated in a small Christian
group, called the JCS Fellowship Breakfast, with Jones, Brehm, and other se-
nior officials and officers. This group, formed by Jones and Brehm in , had
led to “deepened relationships, trust, and understanding.” Brehm believed that
the frank discussions on explosive JCS reform issues would not have been pos-
sible without these relationships.79
Knowing that the chairman had a right to consult with others, Jones asked
for the chiefs’ reactions to his study plans, but not their concurrence. Accord-
ing to Jones, “None objected to the study. One said it could be done in-house.”80
Reflecting Jones’s position that this was his study, the team was named the
Chairman’s Special Study Group (CSSG). Jones and Brehm soon decided to add
another army officer, Lt. Gen. Charles A. Corcoran, to the group. Corcoran had
retired in  after a tour as chief of staff of the Pacific Command.
Brehm said his group “realized that change—were it to mean anything—
would have to be substantial and would be seen by many as painful. We all
knew that previous attempts at change had been largely futile. Perhaps we had
different degrees of passion about the need for change but we definitely shared
General Jones’ assessment: The joint system was broken, and it had to be fixed.”81
“It was important that the whole team feel authorship of the report,” Brehm
concluded. “We needed all five of the military guys to sign up.”82 Each member
would “have a major role in persuading the chiefs of the wisdom of our recom-
mendations, once we have formulated them.”83 Brehm recalled that he and his
colleagues “wanted to deliver the chiefs’ support for reform.”84
In July, the group began interviewing senior officers on the nonattribution
basis needed to assure candor. Brehm scheduled sessions with the air force chief
of staff, Gen. Lew Allen Jr., and the CNO, Adm. Thomas B. Hayward. The tall,
bald, even-tempered Allen had earned a doctorate in physics and was highly
respected as a scientist and advanced weapons specialist. The freckled, sandy-
haired Hayward came from the naval aviation community. He commanded the
Pacific Fleet before being selected to serve as CNO in .
Both chiefs were unhappy about the JCS’s role and status. Allen supported
some of Jones’s themes. He thought that the chiefs “must restore confidence in
the [JCS] system to get the secretary of defense’s and president’s ear.” Allen
recommended that the “chairman should act as ‘senior military adviser’” and
be “properly supported” in that role. Noting the inherent conflict of interest,
Allen argued, “The service chiefs should not try to provide joint advice on re-
source allocation issues.”85
Hayward sailed off in a different direction. He was “very concerned about
the lack of direct input to the president.” He argued that the “members of the
JCS should be able to meet with the president, say, quarterly.” If this could be
arranged, “Then word would get around and others in the system would pay
attention to the JCS views. Joint Staff papers would then be listened to, and
undoubtedly would improve since there would be an interested audience.” He
added that another result would be “better people” being assigned to the Joint
Staff.86
A skeptic would have thought the admiral had confused form with sub-
stance. If the JCS continued to provide only watered-down advice, what
difference would it make how often they went to the White House?
Unknown to the study group, six months earlier, Hayward had circulated
to the other joint chiefs a sixteen-page “SECRET–EYES ONLY” memorandum
expressing “fairly frank” views on “improving the effectiveness of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.”87 Early navy staff work had also addressed JCS credibility. One paper
was titled “How to Reestablish the JCS as a Creditable Agency.”88
Hayward lamented the “steady erosion of JCS authority . . . since the days
of World War II when the chiefs dealt directly with the president on matters of
grand strategy and military policy.” “In recent years,” Hayward’s memoran-
dum noted, the JCS “frequently have lagged events; waited for advice to be so-
licited, or for others to formulate the key issues.” The military advisers also
diminished their influence by “reluctance to challenge the president’s premises,
to disagree with his policies, or to bring him bad news.” The process of advis-
ing the president, Hayward added, was “complicated by strong secretaries of
defense” who “have impeded a free flow of communication between the chiefs
and the president.”89
The admiral also criticized staff support, but devoted only one sentence to
this problem: “The JCS’s effectiveness is diluted by an overgrown staff and cum-
bersome staff process which, on policy issues, is often incapable of timely ac-
tion, and tends toward verbose, lowest-common-denominator products which
lack imagination and impact.”
Hayward suggested that three factors would determine JCS effectiveness:
access to the president and Congress, assertiveness in presenting views, and
the quality and timeliness of those views. He assigned the lowest priority to the
third factor, the one that reformers viewed as the principal source of the JCS’s
diminished influence.
In the CSSG’s early interviews, nearly all senior officers characterized the joint
system as flawed. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, JCS chairman in the early s
registered one notable contrary view: “The chiefs function very well. . . . There
is nothing wrong with the system. . . . No drastic changes are necessary. . . .
Problems are not caused by poor organization. They are with us and always
will be. . . . You will never solve the problem of getting topnotch people on the
Joint Staff.”90
Despite Moorer’s position, evidence of the need for reform began to mount.
On July , Brehm wrote to Jones: “It is clear that frustration levels are high
among the principals. It’s a sad commentary indeed. You are absolutely right
about the need for change, and the urgency.”91
The next day, the group interviewed Marine Commandant Barrow, a tall,
soft-spoken Louisianan. Labeling JCS duties as his “most frustrating” ones,
Barrow reported, “I don’t look forward to Joint Chiefs meetings. . . . The agenda
is often trivial.”92
Barrow told the group that the organization’s “basic concept is flawed.”
The commandant criticized the tendency toward the “lowest common denomi-
nator.” He revealed, “Two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are violently
opposed to split papers” and “constantly seek agreement to avoid” split votes.
Of the top post, Barrow said, “I wouldn’t have the chairman’s job.”
On October , the group saw General Meyer. The army chief was convinced
that the joint system needed dramatic changes. The JCS, he exclaimed, “can’t
carry out our constitutional responsibilities. Even with a congruence of views
now [in the new administration], we can’t get military advice to have an im-
pact.” Years earlier, while serving as deputy chief of staff for operations, Meyer
was convinced that “the system falls apart as soon as a crisis occurs.”93 Meyer
wanted to focus each service chief on running his service, not providing mili-
tary advice. He proposed an advisory group “made up of the chairman and
four ‘retiring’ four-star officers.” By retiring, Meyer meant that they would not
be competing for a follow-on job, such as chief or chairman, increasing the
likelihood of obtaining more independent, better advice. “I think the president
and defense secretary would use [such] advice if they could get it,” he con-
cluded.
Brehm’s group also gathered testimony on JCS ills from the often power-
less four-star warfighting commanders. General Donn A. Starry, the army officer
heading the U.S. Readiness Command, expressed the strongest views: “It is re-
grettable but true that a rational and relevant military voice has not spoken,
and but infrequently been sought, in Washington since the Bay of Pigs. For
understandable reasons, no one trusts advice provided by military folk. Mili-
tary strategy in today’s operational world is bankrupt.”94
Starry also blasted the JCS: “So long as the Joint Chiefs and their organiza-
tion continue to split along service lines and exhibit gross service parochialism,
their service to the nation is of limited value. In fact, for what the organization
costs us, and for what it produces, it probably should be done away with.”
By early December, the CSSG had hammered out preliminary findings and al-
ternatives. These indicted the existing system and hinted at dramatic changes.
As the group’s views became known, service politics would threaten, but not
break, this consensus.
The group confirmed what Jones already knew: the JCS had little credibil-
ity or effect. “Military advice is seldom sought and seldom heeded.” Causes
included the service chiefs’ “conflict of interest” and an institutionally weak
chairman. Moreover, Joint Staff “procedures inhibit independence and sub-
stance of joint papers.” The group also cited poor management of joint officers
as a major problem.95
The group concluded that the department “should retain the JCS concept,”
but modernize its organization, policies, and procedures. Its preliminary rec-
ommendations began to outline four powerful ideas. The first proposed a
strengthened chairman serving as senior military adviser and possibly given
authority to make decisions when service interests pervaded an issue.
The second idea hinted at establishing a deputy chairman. Although the
CSSG did not explicitly include this proposal, it did argue for eliminating the
practice of having service chiefs serve as acting chairman. The group also sug-
gested that lack of a deputy weakened the chairman and created continuity
problems.
The third idea envisioned a joint officer management system. The group
proposed a joint duty specialty for officers, improved preparation for joint as-
signments, continuity in joint positions, and rewards for joint duty.
The CSSG’s last idea proposed increasing Joint Staff independence by re-
ducing or eliminating the need for unanimous agreement and lessening service
involvement in the joint process. Joint Staff officers would author joint papers,
with the services providing only information and advice. The practice of each
service staff analyzing every joint issue would end as well.
Armed with these findings and recommendations, Brehm and the group’s
appropriate service member met with each service chief. Generals Allen and
Barrow were supportive, but Allen indicated that he “tends to oppose the deputy
chairman idea.”96 Barrow “was not sure about establishing four Service Chief
Support Groups” in the Joint Staff to prepare each chief on joint issues.97 Brehm
reported to Jones, “I wouldn’t want to predict at this point where they will come
down on individual propositions, but there is certainly a willingness to make
change of some kind.” Brehm added, “On one specific, Bob Barrow said em-
phatically that he would endorse the concept of a deputy chairman.”98
On December , Brehm and General Kerwin met with Gen. Shy Meyer
and his vice chief, Gen. John W. Vessey Jr. Although agreeing that the recom-
mendations were “a move in the right direction,” Meyer complained that the
proposals were “not a bold enough step.” He advised the study group to “say
what is needed, not deal with the art of the possible.” Brehm hoped that Meyer
would eventually back the group’s proposals as a start toward his more ambi-
tious scheme.99
The CNO torpedoed prospects for consensus among the chiefs in a meeting
with Brehm and Michaelis on December . Hayward questioned the utility of
the group’s work. He found problems with the idea of a deputy chairman and
expressed navy opposition to a career path for joint officers, citing a shortage
of naval personnel.100 Challenging a fundamental conclusion, Hayward did
not agree that JCS papers represented the lowest level of concurrence, or if
they did, he was not aware of papers being faulted because of it. The admiral’s
earlier memorandum had described Joint Staff papers as tending “toward ver-
bose, lowest-common-denominator products which lack imagination and im-
pact,” but none of Brehm’s team knew of that opinion.101
Despite their conflicting reactions, Brehm believed he “could somehow con-
vince the chiefs to rally around our basic proposals.” Brehm later explained: “I
knew the men well; I knew them to be thoughtful; I knew them to be interested
in good government; and I knew them to be frustrated with the traditional ways
of doing things in the joint arena. Naturally, I felt that the logic of what we
were suggesting was compelling, if not overwhelming.” But in hindsight, Brehm
“failed to take into account the influence others would have upon them—
others who did not share our convictions.”102
Powerful Navy Secretary John Lehman disagreed vehemently with Jones
and the CSSG. Behind the scenes, unknown to Hayward and Barrow, Lehman
had been tracking the group’s work. His watchdog was a retired marine: Brig.
Gen. J. D. “Don” Hittle, who had opposed unification in the s and s
and had helped convince key congressmen to weaken the unifying provisions
of the National Security Act of . Hittle later served as assistant to the sec-
retary of defense for legislative affairs, SASC special counsel, and navy assis-
tant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs. Defense experts knew Hittle as
a shrewd practitioner of power politics on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon.
On September , , Hittle warned Lehman “that the pressure for de-
fense reorganization is building up and that it is coordinated.” A Washington
Post article on the defense budget by retired army general Maxwell D. Taylor
alarmed Hittle. He claimed that Taylor’s “real targets, of course, are naval avia-
tion and the Marine Corps. This is, in essence, the old Army-Air Force attack
on our balanced seapower.” In Hittle’s view, the fact that Tom Wicker’s New
York Times column “applauded Taylor’s views” should dispel “any doubts that
the Taylor article was an isolated unorchestrated opinion.”103
A subsequent Hittle memorandum to Lehman, marked “VERY PER-
SONAL,” focused on the CSSG, warning: “This whole operation is loaded with
potential trouble for the Navy and Marine Corps, yet it is being handled, and
viewed by some, in a too casual manner.” Without naming names, Hittle’s com-
ments targeted Hayward and Barrow. Hittle “strongly recommended at the
earliest opportunity” that Lehman tell Hayward and Barrow to ensure that
they saw the report before any action was taken, request that any reform
affecting Lehman’s authority be referred to him, and object to proposals that
would be contrary to the National Security Act of .104
Another Hittle “PERSONAL FOR” memorandum advised Lehman that the
“CNO should be fully apprised of your concern over the Jones-Brehm project.”
The retired general also noted the Marine Corps had “a small high-powered
group taking preliminary steps . . . in the event the Jones-Brehm caper comes
to a boil.”105
On December , Hittle again urged Lehman to instruct Hayward and Bar-
row on reorganization. Notes on the memorandum indicated a decision to put
this issue on the agenda of Lehman’s next weekly sessions with the CNO and
commandant. A note reading “done during commandant/secretary of the
Navy meeting” dated January  indicated that Barrow had received his in-
structions.106
“Secretary Lehman and I had compatible views on Joint Chiefs reform,”
Hayward later recalled. “We spoke a number of times on this issue. Secretary
Lehman did not give me any instructions regarding the matter, for to do so would
have been highly improper and he knew that.” Hayward viewed the secretary’s
authority as limited: “The secretary can give the service chief instructions on
a few matters, but not across the board and certainly not of this kind.”107
The Brehm group’s meetings with the service chiefs in December, , rep-
resented the high-water mark for JCS support of reform. The CSSG had almost
succeeded in convincing the service chiefs to support reorganization. Three chiefs
joined Jones in favoring reform, although Meyer’s insistence on more far-reach-
ing reforms fractured this solidarity. Only Hayward remained outside the re-
form camp. Soon, however, Barrow—possibly under pressure from Lehman and
marine antireformers—would abruptly abandon his proreform stance.
Having spent eight years as a member of the JCS, Jones saw more easily than
Brehm the lurking gridlock. After the CSSG briefed him on December  on the
chiefs’ adverse reactions, the chairman began considering a change in course:
most likely, he would have to abandon his hopes for internal agreement.108
7. Members of the JCS meet in the Pentagon, November, 1979. Left to right:
Gen. Edward “Shy” Meyer, army chief of staff; Gen. Lew Allen, air force
chief of staff; Adm. Tom Hayward, chief of naval operations; Gen. Bob
Barrow, marine commandant; and Gen. David Jones, chairman.
(DoD photo.)
Despite the chiefs’ comments, the CSSG did not yield on any recommenda-
tion. Its final report retained each preliminary proposal and added others. Ex-
plicitly addressing a previously hinted idea, the group recommended a four-
star vice or deputy chairman. It also added a new recommendation to increase
unified command involvement in Joint Staff activities.109
Reaching agreement, Brehm said, “was not a problem for anybody except
Mike Michaelis. He was getting the same kind of abuse, I suspect, at night on
the telephone that the CNO was getting.”110
Hayward denied being pressured by anybody, especially former naval offic-
ers. “I received no pressure from any of the retired community.” He didn’t need
to be: “I was strongly opposed to the concept of the reform package.”111
By late January, Jones was “convinced that if we were going to make fun-
damental change, there would have to be outside pressure. It would have to
come from Congress.”112 Armed with a near-final CSSG report, Jones set his
sights on taking these ideas to Congress at an early opportunity. Being close to
retirement made him more comfortable with this approach because it would
not “look like empire building and self-aggrandizement.”113
The chairman announced his plans to the CSSG at a meeting on January
: “On the broader issues, I am going to the Hill next week.” There, he said, he
would “drop hints about the work going on.” Jones further informed the group,
“An article will be published soon also, to help build external support.”114
The CSSG report formed the basis of Jones’s testimony to the HASC on
February  and his magazine article. His testimony addressed five recommen-
dations, omitting only the proposal for a vice chairman—an idea he endorsed
in his article.
On April , Brehm submitted the group’s seventy-three-page report, The
Organization and Functions of the JCS, which became known simply as the
“Brehm Report.” Jones decided not to ask the JCS to address it. “The opposition
was such that an effort to gain approval through the formal staffing process
would have been counterproductive.”115
Like all initial efforts on complex subjects, the CSSG’s work would be im-
proved upon over the next five years. Nevertheless, the Brehm Report became
the intellectual wellspring for key concepts: chairman as principal military
adviser, vice chairman, joint specialty officer, and independent Joint Staff.
Rarely did the military brotherhood criticize a senior officer on Capitol Hill. But
Jones’s critics abandoned this tradition in their determination to crush his re-
form campaign. Following Jones’s testimony on February , Pentagon reform
opponents reacted fiercely to what they viewed as turncoat behavior. They made
efforts to discredit him, claiming, “General Jones—not organization defects—
is to blame for the flawed policies and failed operations of recent years.” As a
Senate staff member, I heard a constant drumbeat of such attacks.
Jones had given priority to the national interest and knowingly paid an
enormous price for breaking ranks. Although his critics showed their delight
at his approaching retirement, their denunciations had no impact on him.
Having drawn attention to crippling deficiencies and offered powerful fixes, Jones
saw his forty-year career ending on a high note. He viewed his call for JCS re-
form as his most significant contribution to the nation’s security.116
Jones had done his duty. Now, it was up to Congress.
The House Fires the First Shot 59
CHAPTER 3
The House Fires

the First Shot
A journey of a thousand miles
must begin with a single step.
—Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-Tzu
W hen General Jones delivered his “bolt out of the blue” call for JCS re-
form, one House Armed Services Committee staffer in the audience,
Archie D. Barrett, knew exactly what the general was talking about. Barrett
had joined the HASC staff nine months earlier following his retirement as an
air force colonel. Although he was still learning the ropes on Capitol Hill, Barrett
knew defense organization: He had devoted the last four years of his twenty-
four-year career to that complex subject.1
Jones’s bold call for reform, especially with Weinberger seated beside him,
stunned Barrett. The retired colonel knew the Pentagon’s aversion to reorgani-
zation. He wondered how much Jones had told Weinberger about his plans.
Barrett watched the secretary for a clue to his attitude. As usual, Weinberger’s
face remained inscrutable. Looking around the dais at the committee mem-
bers, Barrett wondered if any of them truly comprehended what General Jones
was saying. Most of them, he knew, were unfamiliar with the inner workings
of the Department of Defense, especially its arcane organization issues. Such
matters seldom involved Capitol Hill. Sensing that no one else had grasped the
significance of Jones’s remarks, Barrett let out a sigh: Well, I do.
As the hearing moved into the question period, Barrett waited anxiously
to see the reaction by his boss, Cong. Richard C. White (D-Texas), Investiga-
tions Subcommittee chairman. He would be key to any legislative response.
To Barrett’s dismay, White’s questions indicated he had no interest in Jones’s

testimony.
Back in his office mulling over the hearing, Barrett concluded: This is big
stuff. Our subcommittee has to do something. We have jurisdiction here. White
would have little incentive to take on this emotional, complex issue. The nine-
term congressman had already announced he would retire when the session
ended in eleven months. The subcommittee’s agenda was full. Adding another
major issue would tax members and staff. Moreover, the members’ noticeable
disinterest in Jones’s testimony would add to White’s reluctance.
Jones had hoped his ideas would catch hold with someone on the HASC,
but he was thinking of a congressman, not a staffer. Nevertheless, his ideas
would not have caught hold at all had it not been for Barrett. With his back-
ground in organization and his staff position on the subcommittee having ju-
risdiction, Barrett was ideally placed to respond to Jones’s call for reform.
Arch Barrett graduated from West Point in  and spent the first twenty
years of his career in purely air force assignments. The Texas native copiloted
B- bombers in the Strategic Air Command. His high class standing at the
Point—seventh out of  classmates—led to a teaching assignment in the Air
Force Academy’s Political Science Department. To prepare, he entered the doc-
toral program in political economy and government at Harvard University, where
he wrote his dissertation on House voting. Years earlier, knowing Barrett’s in-
terest in politics, fellow cadets wrote in the West Point yearbook that he “would
make a capable senator from Texas.”2
Before completing his teaching tour, Barrett reported for F- fighter train-
ing en route to Southeast Asia. He flew the F- in Vietnam in  and ,
earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. After completing his academy tour,
Barrett served back-to-back assignments in Europe. His next stop was the Pen-
tagon, where his work for the deputy chief of staff for plans and operations on
the Air Staff exposed him to the inner workings of bureaucracies and taught
him how poor organization hinders good leaders.
In response to President Carter’s campaign promise to reorganize the
federal government, the Pentagon initiated the Defense Organization Study.
When OSD needed an officer to serve on the small secretariat overseeing the
study, the air force nominated Barrett. Led by prominent outsiders, the study
group examined the Pentagon’s structural deficiencies and proposed far-reach-
ing reforms. When the comprehensive study appeared headed for the dustbin,
Barrett decided to write a book to preserve the research and further develop
promising proposals.
Barrett next secured an assignment as a senior research fellow at the Na-
tional Defense University (NDU), the Pentagon’s premier academic institution,
where he wrote Reappraising Defense Organization, a -page examination of
problems, including ones later raised in Jones’s testimony. Upon its release in
8. Major Arch Barrett next to his F-4 aircraft in Vietnam, July, 1969.
(U.S. Air Force photo.)
, Armed Forces Journal commented, “Barrett’s study is not only far better
written, but is much more succinct and better organized than most of the –
 DoD-funded reorganization studies.”3
After completing his book, Barrett retired from the air force and looked for
work on Capitol Hill. He described as “purely coincidence” his arrival on the
HASC Investigations Subcommittee staff shortly before JCS reorganization be-
came an issue. Barrett’s West Point classmate, William H. L. “Moon” Mullins,
then General Dynamics’s director of legislative affairs, had arranged an inter-

view for Barrett with Congressman White. The Investigations Subcommittee
chairman told Barrett, “You’re the guy I want.”
Barrett did not expect to work on Pentagon reorganization. The subcom-
mittee had not examined organization issues for years and had no plans to raise
the subject. Jones’s testimony changed his expectations, however. Smart, dedi-
cated, and ambitious, Barrett began the task of persuading White to respond
to Jones’s call for reform. The subcommittee’s senior staff member, John Lally,
supported Barrett’s efforts.
“Mr. Chairman,” Barrett told White, “when the top military officer says
that the JCS system is fatally flawed, Congress can’t sit idly by. And your sub-
committee is the one that has jurisdiction. You, sir, must lead this effort.”
Based solely on this argument and in the absence of any interest, exper-
tise, or commitment, White decided to launch an inquiry. In a press release
announcing the subcommittee hearings, White said, “If there is any way to
improve the efficiency of the current Joint Chiefs of Staff organization, it should
be instituted immediately.” He also intended to complete the subcommittee’s
work “so that any necessary legislation may be acted upon before the adjourn-
ment of the th Congress.”4
Even though White ranked as the HASC’s fourth most senior Democrat,
he was not the ideal member to lead this charge. “White was not highly re-
garded by his colleagues on the committee,” said a staffer. “[I]n his general
demeanor and the issues he took on that he didn’t know a lot about, he could
well go astray and fulfill their low estimation of him.” Few members, if any,
were likely to join White’s assault on the powerful JCS and their numerous
allies.5
Barrett’s newness did not permit him to reassure members about White’s
effort. Congressmen and senators are wary of advice from new staffers. They
want to see a record of proven performance before taking a public position based
upon a staff member’s work. Barrett had earned his impressive credentials in a
different world. On Capitol Hill, the former colonel would have to gain the mem-
bers’ confidence the old-fashioned way: he’d have to earn it.
Lally assigned Barrett, who was well prepared intellectually to support the
inquiry, the lead role. The former pilot had his book and supporting documen-
tation to help structure the hearings. Barrett knew who had expertise on the
JCS and was acquainted with many of these current and former officials. In
addition to his work and academic preparations, Barrett possessed the skills,
discipline, and drive to tackle the enormous challenge of Pentagon reform. Of
his time at West Point, Barrett said, “I was very much a hive. I studied all the
time.” Cadets use the slang term “hive” to characterize a person who studies
hard and excels as a result. Barrett was “well known for his academic achieve-
ments” and “always working, even after taps.”6
In his book, Barrett reaffirmed deficiencies repeatedly cited by study groups

for twenty-five years. He identified four significant problems: inability of the
service-dominated joint organizations to perform their primary functions of
providing advice and employing forces, weaknesses of the service secretaries,
overwhelming influence of the four services, and OSD’s flawed management
approach, particularly neglect of its policy-making role.7
In considering solutions, Barrett advanced two premises. He argued that
far-reaching proposals eventually attain the realm of political unreality, regard-
less of how logically appealing and theoretically satisfying they might be. He
further postulated that affected organizations impose bounds that make some
alternatives unrealistic. Convinced that opposition from the Pentagon and its
allies would doom anything more than limited reorganization, he recommended
only a few modest changes.8
Barrett explained his book’s guiding precept in a letter to General Jones: “I
tried to remain within the bounds of what might be politically feasible (within
the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill). . . . applying that constraint caused me to
rule out National Military Advisers, for example.”9
“[Y]our politically constrained proposals do not go far enough,” replied
Jones. “What is needed is a preponderance of influence by the CJCS [chairman,
JCS]–CINC [commander in chief of a combatant command] axis on joint is-
sues, rather than merely some institutional influence which allows that voice
to be heard among those of the services.”10
Later, when Barrett asked Jones to write the book’s introduction, the gen-
eral expressed the same view: “Arch Barrett’s analysis supports the need for
far-reaching actions, but because he is greatly concerned with political practi-
cality, his recommendations are very modest. Politics, after all, is the art of the
possible. Nevertheless, I dare to hope that our actions may yet match our rheto-
ric when we proclaim that national security must be above politics—partisan,
bureaucratic, sectional, or any other kind.”11
Barrett “thought that the political boundaries for doing anything were very,
very narrow—only a slight congressional window” and also felt “the secretary
of defense had the authority to take care of these problems internally, and that
was the only way to handle them.” He “was not pushing for a great amount of
change.”
White accepted Barrett’s assessment of reform politics and agreed that any
legislation should be modest to reflect reality. Despite evidence of problems else-
where in the Pentagon, neither White nor Barrett nor Lally considered expand-
ing the inquiry beyond the narrow range of JCS issues raised by Jones.
On March , , the administration grabbed back defense headlines from
Jones’s reform proposals. President Reagan announced his selection of Gen.
Jack Vessey, the army vice chief, to replace Jones in mid-June. This decision sur-
prised both Pentagon insiders and the media. After the announcement, one
well-connected officer said of rumors about the next JCS chairman, “The first
time I heard Vessey’s name was today.”12
A month earlier, a New York Times piece on leading candidates for the job
placed the CNO, Adm. Tom Hayward, in front. Next on its list were three army
generals: Bernard W. Rogers, Donn A. Starry, and John Wickham. The article
also indicated that two other admirals, Harry D. Train II and Robert L. J. Long,
might be selected if Hayward failed to get the job. The article did not even men-
tion Vessey.13
Announcing his selection, the president called Vessey “a soldier’s soldier.”
White House officials said Reagan wanted to stress “traditional qualities of
military leadership” over bureaucratic skills. The president wanted “a proven
combat officer” for a job often held by a manager. Vessey’s “nonpolitical” repu-
tation impressed the president. One Reagan aide said: “We have for about
twenty years placed in the military a very high importance on a knowledge
of cost-benefit analysis, on decision processes for the allocation of resources
and on scientific management techniques. All that is very worthwhile for the
management of a peacetime or a wartime army, but it came at the expense of
lessened importance on such traditional areas of focus as history, strategic
concepts . . . and somewhat at the expense of a concern for the leadership of
men and women.”14
Although the criticism was indirect, experts read the aide’s comments as a
slap at the outgoing chairman. They also demonstrated how poorly Reagan
and Weinberger understood the skills that they would need in their senior mili-
tary adviser. Their next selection of a JCS chairman—more than three years
later—would disregard the superficial ideas they had expressed in March, .
When choosing a new army chief of staff in , Carter reportedly had
passed over Vessey because he opposed the president’s plan to withdraw U.S.
troops from Korea. By choosing Vessey, Reagan also meant to contrast his judg-
ment with Carter’s on military issues.
Reagan and Weinberger selected the new chairman by going to central
casting. They wanted the top officer’s image to match the one they were creat-
ing for the administration. A week after the announcement, Weinberger gushed
in his weekly report to Reagan that Vessey “is regarded as a ‘soldiers’ general,’
much like Omar Bradley was, and has been branded a ‘mud soldier’ by the
press.”15 Those were exactly the kind of popular characterizations they desired.
Nor did the fact that the seventy-one-year-old Reagan had selected the oldest
candidate—Vessey was fifty-nine—go unnoticed. One army officer quipped,
“Age is a little more ‘in’ nowadays.”16
The military highly regarded Vessey for his long record of service, com-
mand assignments, and rise through the ranks from private to general. Col-
leagues described him as “the best of the four stars,” “wise old man,” “cautious
and conservative,” and “quiet, thoughtful.” Vessey preferred to gain consensus
before moving ahead. His early efforts as chairman would magnify this ten-
dency as he sought to overcome the divisions in the JCS that occurred during
Jones’s tenure. Thus, at a time when the nation needed a military leader who
would challenge the joint chiefs’ consensual approach, it received a chairman
who was comfortable with it.
Two weeks after announcing Vessey’s selection, Reagan named his choices
for the top navy and air force jobs, replacing Admiral Hayward and General
Allen, whose four-year terms would conclude at the end of June. The presi-
dent tapped Adm. James Watkins to serve as CNO and Gen. Charles Gabriel as
air force chief of staff. Watkins, the first nuclear submariner chosen for the
top navy billet, was described as “a tough cookie” and was compared with
the demanding head of the nuclear navy, Adm. Hyman G. Rickover. Gabriel
was just the opposite. Colleagues described him as “very laid back” and “easy-
going.”17
As the hoopla over the selection of Vessey, Watkins, and Gabriel was quiet-
ing down, the army chief, Gen. Shy Meyer, publicly presented his own bold ideas
on joint system reform. The military viewed Meyer, an infantry combat vet-
eran of Korea and Vietnam, as a brilliant leader. Admiral Bill Crowe described
Meyer as “a very young Army chief of staff with some rather innovative ideas
and the courage to challenge ingrown beliefs.” The admiral added that Meyer
was “an articulate intellectual individual with a reputation for knowing what
he was talking about.”18 Meyer’s endorsement increased interest in JCS reform
and fit the historic pattern of army chiefs. Marshall, Eisenhower, Bradley,
“Lightning Joe” Collins, and Maxwell Taylor had all pushed for a more unified
military.
Like Jones, Meyer selected the Armed Forces Journal as the medium for pre-
senting his views. In an April article titled “The JCS—How Much Reform Is
Needed?” Meyer pressed his case for even more radical reforms: “The changes
urged by General Jones, while headed in the right direction, do not go far
enough.” Meyer was most concerned about the “divided loyalty”—to their ser-
vice and the JCS—“demanded of service chiefs.”19
Meyer recommended “major surgery” to end the practice of “dual-hatting.”
He suggested that a body of full-time advisers—a National Military Advisory
Council—be created, drawing on “distinguished four-star rank officers, not
charged with any service responsibilities, who would never return to their re-
spective services.” Others—notably General Bradley in , General Taylor in
, and Senator Symington in —had previously proposed this concept.
Meyer endorsed Jones’s proposal for an alter ego for the chairman: “One of the
council members could be appointed vice chairman for continuity purposes.”
Meyer envisioned that “this body of military advisers would examine military
alternatives and recommend strategic scenarios to govern how the military
departments are to organize, equip, and prepare their forces for war.”
9. General Edward “Shy” Meyer, army chief of staff.

(U.S. Army photo.)
Although the National Military Advisory Council distinguished Meyer’s

approach from Jones’s, his other recommendations were consistent with and
further advanced Jones’s ideas. Meyer explained the chairman’s “greatly en-
hanced role and increased influence” by saying “he would direct planning and
operations and be able to speak his own mind as well as disagree with the opin-
ion of the council.” Meyer also broke new ground by proposing that the “chair-
man alone would direct the Joint Staff. He would determine the issues for study
and initiate staff actions through the director of the Joint Staff.”
Of the army chief ’s more radical proposals, Jones later said, “I appreciated
General Meyer making me look more reasonable.” Although the army chief
pushed for more extreme reforms, he received little criticism from those op-
posed to change. They continued to focus their energies on denouncing Jones.20
Between April  and July , the Investigations Subcommittee compiled
nearly a thousand pages of testimony from forty-three witnesses in twenty
hearings. Barrett’s expertise permitted the subcommittee to conduct the most
rigorous examination of the JCS ever. With the hearings only two-thirds over,
the Armed Forces Journal reported, “The hearings . . . are going into more depth
than AFJ has seen a congressional committee go on any defense issue since the
TFX [F- aircraft] hearings of the early s.”21 When the subcommittee
released the hearings’ printed record, Vessey wrote White, “Whatever happens
with JCS reorganization, the record of your subcommittee’s hearings will stand
for many years to come as the definitive reference document on the subject.” In
orchestrating these hearings, Barrett demonstrated why fellow West Pointers
called him a hive.22
The subcommittee chairman and his staff aimed high when recruiting wit-
nesses. White invited the three living former presidents—Nixon, Ford, and
Carter—to testify. None accepted. White, Barrett, and Lally also targeted former
defense secretaries. Although they had more success at that level, White and
his staffers struck out with the incumbent secretary. In an April  letter,
Weinberger declined the invitation: “Until my office receives a formal proposal
from the chairman and the chiefs outlining their views for reorganization, and
until it is properly staffed and reviewed, it would be inappropriate for me to
comment or to appear as a witness on this subject.”23
The subcommittee scheduled the joint chiefs to be among the first witnesses.
Weinberger explained to the president that he had met with JCS representa-
tives “to ensure that their testimony on the widely diverse proposals for reorga-
nization does not present the picture of an organization unable to carry out
plans or policies, and to ensure that the point is made that we will have a new
chairman and two new chiefs in July.”24
Turnover of three joint chiefs gave the secretary an excuse for not taking a
position. He may also have anticipated that Vessey would not push reforms to
the same extent as Jones. In any case, wait-and-see appears to have been a
coordinated approach. After observing that a new Joint Chiefs of Staff—in
which General Meyer and Gen. Robert H. Barrow of the Marine Corps would
be the only holdovers—would be taking over later that summer, SASC chair-
man John Tower said, “We need to see how they work out before we think about
any statutory mandate for reorganization.”25
When subcommittee hearings started, Barrett remembered: “A lot of the
time, we did not even have a Republican representative there. Just the chair-
man.” Because White knew little about defense organization, he asked Barrett
and Lally to conduct much of the questioning in early sessions. (The House
permitted staff to question witnesses; the Senate did not.) As the hearings pro-
gressed, White’s participation and commitment grew, according to Barrett. As
evidence of disarray in the JCS mounted, the chairman “gets caught up in the
issues and comes to believe that Jones is right. And then there was hell to pay.
He just wouldn’t let go until he did all he could do to take care of his responsi-
bilities as chairman.”
The subcommittee scheduled Cong. Newt Gingrich, a junior Republican
from Georgia, as its first witness. Although Gingrich had shown an interest in
JCS reform, permitting him to testify first represented only congressional cour-
tesy.26 However, when Gingrich did not arrive on time, White asked General
Meyer to kick off the hearings. The army chief testified on ideas in his Armed
Forces Journal article and warned the committee: “tinkering will not suffice.
Only by taking on some of the issues which in the past have been put in the box
which says, ‘Too tough to handle,’ are we going to be able to have the kind of
operational advice and military advisers that the next two decades out to the
st century are going to demand.”27
When finally delivered, Gingrich’s statement revealed expertise on defense
organization and military history. The two-term congressman and former his-
tory professor was credited with bringing “a new supply of intellectual vitality
to a House GOP bloc that had been accused of lacking it in the past.” Gingrich,
viewed as a “brash newcomer,” had “a tempestuous first term in which he regu-
larly offered strategy advice to his party’s leadership and plotted out scenarios
for Republican political dominance.” He received “generous amounts of press
attention” but drew “hostility from some older conservatives who felt his ideas
amounted to personal fantasy.”28
Gingrich began his testimony by declaring: “These hearings may well be the
most important hearings of the year or many years in defense. The central prob-
lems of American survival are not budget, resource, or hardware problems. The
real threats to our ability to survive are intellectual and organizational.” He quickly
aligned himself with reformers by stating, “the current system is not working.”
Gingrich proposed eight forceful remedies: a single chief of the Joint Staff,
a military advisory council separate from the JCS, focusing the service chiefs
on preparing for war, a general staff system, joint training for all generals and
admirals, strengthened CINC control of subordinate commands and their bud-
gets, substantial strengthening of the Readiness Command’s ability to direct
joint training and develop joint doctrine, and a separate budget for command
and control and joint training.
“Historically countries reform their military only after major defeats,”
Gingrich concluded. “I think the great challenge to this Congress as it looks at
spending more on defense is to also spend more time thinking about defense,
because we desperately need reform without defeat.”
Only a handful of members could have articulated such insightful views

on JCS reorganization. Gingrich contributed ideas—on the Joint Staff, Readi-
ness Command, and a budget for joint activities—that would later become part
of the reform debate, but some of his ideas were more than a decade ahead of
their time. Despite its thoughtfulness, Gingrich’s testimony did not influence
the subcommittee or its staff. Seeing the Georgia congressman’s testimony as
pro forma, they were not open to his ideas.
The subcommittee reconvened that afternoon with General Jones testify-
ing first. His testimony represented an intellectual leap. In his February testi-
mony and Journal article, Jones addressed only symptoms. Now, he shifted the
discussion to four fundamental problems: “First, responsibility and authority
are diffused, both in Washington and in the field. . . . Second, the corporate
advice provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not crisp, timely, very useful or
very influential. . . . Third, individual service interests too often dominate JCS
recommendations and actions at the expense of broader defense interests. . . .
And fourth, a service chief does not have enough time to perform his two roles
. . . and these two roles have a built-in conflict of interest.” Jones used Truman
and Eisenhower quotations and forty years of reorganization studies to dem-
onstrate the persistence of these problems.29
For the first time, Jones articulated specific solutions. He noted that all stud-
ies of the joint system had proposed two basic remedies: “strengthen the chair-
man” and “go to senior military advisers.” Jones said, “General Meyer opts for
the latter; I go for the former . . . but either one, I think, would make major
progress.”30
Jones’s testimony detailed specific legislative changes to strengthen the JCS
chairman. His initial proposal had enormous implications. “First, I would make
the chairman the principal military adviser.” To bring an end to the strangle-
hold that service interests had on joint decisions, Jones proposed that the chair-
man replace the JCS. The newly elevated chairman, Jones said, “would receive
his counsel from the chiefs of the services and also, and very importantly, from
unified and specified commanders.” Although the air force general did not ad-
dress the revised status of the other joint chiefs, his comments indicated that
one role would be advisers to the chairman.
Jones’s second specific proposal “would give the chairman oversight of the
unified and specified commands.” He did not explain this recommendation in
detail, but selected the term “oversight” carefully. Stronger terms, such as “su-
pervision,” would have suggested infringement on the chain of command.
Jones noted that a DoD directive specified that the chain of command runs
from the president to the secretary of defense through the JCS to the unified
and specified commands. Jones’s third specific proposal would have the chain
run through the chairman rather than the JCS “and I would put it in the stat-
ute, not just in the directive.”
Jones next made two recommendations to protect the JCS role of the ser-
vice chiefs. In line with a more general notion advanced in his Journal article,
he “would also have a provision whereby the secretary of defense and the presi-
dent, and I could foresee the Congress, have the right to ask the corporate group
for their advice on an issue.” Jones cited arms control as an area where na-
tional leaders might want such advice.
To reassure each chief that he would have an opportunity to air his service’s
perspective before the secretary made a major decision, Jones proposed that if
a chief “strongly disagreed with the chairman, he would have the right to pro-
vide his advice directly to the secretary of defense on that issue.”
“I would also have the Joint Staff work directly for the chairman,” Jones
testified, restating a powerful idea offered by Meyer.
Although Jones had somewhat refined his ideas for joint personnel poli-
cies, they were still generalities: “I would have more people coming out of
joint schools going to the joint system.” This was designed to overcome the
low percentage of officers who had joint schooling—then only  percent of
middle-grade officers—serving in joint positions. Jones would “try to repro-
gram” officers promoted to one-star rank with “a capstone course . . . of about
three to four months.” The goal was “an individual capable of taking a very
broad look at the problems rather than one who perceives only the narrow
service problem.” The chairman talked about promotions and stressed, “We
need to do more from a rewards standpoint.”
Jones’s April  testimony represented another major step in the JCS reor-
ganization battle. Many of his ideas would withstand years of inquiry and
debate.
Admiral Hayward followed Jones. The CNO’s testimony was the antire-
form camp’s first formal rebuttal. Observers described Hayward’s testimony
as “forcefully delivered, intense.” An aide reported to Weinberger that Hay-
ward, “as the only speaker today opposed to statutory reorganization, electrified
those in attendance.”31
Hayward defended the status quo: “The current organization is entirely
adequate to the task and performs its functions well. I believe it would be
effective in war and does not need major surgery.” Moreover, he emphati-
cally declared, “I firmly believe that there is no need to reorganize the Joint
Chiefs of Staff in any major way.” Hayward termed the proposed reorganiza-
tion “the first, dangerous step toward a general staff which the Congress
clearly has not supported in the past, and which I do not support now.” He
also told the subcommittee, “I am deeply offended by the slanderous criti-
cisms which one frequently hears about the Joint Chiefs being an ineffective
group of parochial service chiefs who spend most of their time bickering
among themselves, horse trading to preserve turf and what is best for their
service.”32
The Armed Forces Journal reported, “Admiral Hayward’s blunt testimony

opposing any JCS reform initiatives left the House subcommittee members al-
most speechless when he finished his prepared statement, saying, ‘Reorganiza-
tion is simply not necessary’ and ‘no reorganization is needed’ in about ten
different ways.”33
When White asked the admiral, “Is there any recommendation made by
General Jones or by General Meyer that you do endorse?” Hayward gave a long
negative answer which the Journal interpreted as saying, “Not one—except that
I do agree we need to strengthen the role of the JCS.”
After the hearing, Hayward told a Journal reporter with White, Lally, and
Barrett listening, “You know that I did not want these hearings to happen.” Of
the inquiry, he predicted, “It will not come to any good.”
The Investigations Subcommittee heard from the rest of the current joint
chiefs when Generals Lew Allen and Bob Barrow, the air force chief and ma-
rine commandant, testified respectively on April  and . Allen stressed the
need for service chiefs to remain an integral part of the joint process. Without
naming names, he communicated his opposition to Meyer’s proposals. Allen
did agree that reform could be useful “to improve the effectiveness of the cur-
rent system. The key feature is a strengthening of the role of the chairman,
and I agree that such a shift is needed.”34
Allen supported nearly all of Jones’s proposals but did not align himself
with the chairman. He recommended designating the chairman as principal
military adviser, allowing the chain of command to run through the chair-
man, and having the Joint Staff work for the chairman. Allen even commented
favorably on the deputy chairman. He had told the Chairman’s Special Study
Group a deputy chairman was “not unacceptable.” The air force chief ’s testi-
mony publicly added a third sitting joint chief to the list of reform proponents.
Barrow, appearing one week after Hayward, escalated the naval service’s
rhetorical counterattack. “The proposal set forth by General Jones would not
only not improve Joint Chiefs of Staff effectiveness, it would do serious harm
to the system,” the marine general proclaimed. Barrow’s views on JCS orga-
nization had done an about-face in the four and one-half months since his
last meeting with the CSSG. Then he had been the service chief most sup-
portive of reform; now the commandant was vying with Hayward for most
recalcitrant.35
At the end of July, the three new joint chiefs—Vessey, Watkins, and
Gabriel—testified at the last hearing. Between the old and new joint chiefs,
thirty-four witnesses appeared. Each of ten former high-ranking defense civil-
ians favored JCS reform. All active and retired army and air force officers called
to testify supported reform except for Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, a former JCS
chairman. Excluding CSSG members, all marine witnesses and half of the navy
witnesses opposed reorganization. The three admirals who favored reform—
10. This Richard Allison cartoon appearing in the Navy Times on May 24,
1982, depicted how brutal the fight over JCS reorganization had become.
Harry Train, Bob Long, and Thor Hanson—were serving or had served in se-
nior joint positions. Train commanded the Atlantic Command while Long
headed the Pacific Command. Hanson had served as Joint Staff director.
Because these three navy proreformers appeared near the hearings’ end,
military opinion in the early hearings divided nearly exclusively along army–
air force and navy–Marine Corps lines. The Armed Forces Journal reported on
the early hearings under the headline: “Navy, Marines Adamantly Oppose JCS
Reforms Most Others Tell Congress Are Long Overdue.” The article noted that
“Navy/Marine Corps opposition to the reform proposals has been united among
both present and retired chiefs from those services—and at times almost
brutal.”36
As the hearings progressed, White began to draft legislation. The chair-
man tried out his legislative fixes at the hearings. According to Barrett: “Being
very proud of a provision after we’d get it hammered out, White would go to a
hearing, read his provision out to some unsuspecting witness, and ask, ‘What
do you think about that?’”
One senior staffer ridiculed White’s legislative drafting habit: “Dick White
had a reputation. People used to say that he would draft legislation on toilet
paper. He loved to write legislation. He was a lawyer, and he thought he could

do it better than anybody else. He would say, ‘I’ve got a bill here that I think will
accomplish just what you’re talking about there, Mr. So and So.’ Here would be
this legislation, and everybody would roll their eyes.”37
In the midst of the subcommittee’s work, General Jones retired. On June ,
the day before his retirement, Jones sent Weinberger a memorandum present-
ing his views and recommendations and urging the secretary to act. “The need
for change now is more critical than ever before. The only question is not if, but
when and under what circumstances we will correct these organizational defi-
ciencies.”38
The impact of Jones’s departure on the reorganization campaign was un-
clear. Meyer remained to advocate his more radical reforms, but how Vessey’s
appointment would shift the balance of sentiment was unknown. Meanwhile,
Jones announced that he intended to stay engaged. Asked in a television inter-
view what he planned to do about JCS reform, he declared, “I’m going to fight
for it.”39
On June , Judge William P. Clark, Reagan’s national security adviser,
brought the White House into the JCS reorganization issue and compelled
Weinberger to act. Clark advised the secretary “it would be useful to apprise
the president of this matter.” He also asked that information “describing how
this issue is being addressed by the Department of Defense” be provided to the
president by mid-July.40
The National Security Council (NSC) staff had urged Clark to write to
Weinberger, noting, “To date, the civilian leadership in DoD has remained si-
lent.” The staff argued: “The command structure of our forces, and with it, the
JCS system and structure, belongs to the commander-in-chief. Official admin-
istration statements on the need for reform or legislative proposals regarding
the JCS structure should not be offered until you [Clark] and the president have
had the opportunity to study the issue.” The staff designed Clark’s memoran-
dum to Weinberger to “preclude premature public discussion” by DoD.41
The JCS drafted Weinberger’s report to Reagan, which was submitted on
July . The memorandum prescribed “five paramount criteria” for measuring
proposals: “would the change improve the nation’s ability to wage war; would
it assure that you and I and future presidents and defense secretaries receive
better and more timely advice; would it ensure that the requirements of the
commanders of our combatant commands are better met; would the proposal
improve our ability to allocate resources for national defense more wisely and
use them more efficiently; would the proposal be consistent with civilian con-
trol of the military.” The JCS had proposed the first four criteria. Weinberger
added the last one at the suggestion of White House Fellow Mary Anne Wood,
who advised him of the obvious: “There really is no way to judge most of the
proposals against the criteria.”42
Weinberger’s memorandum defended DoD’s management record since

, noting three improvements: access to the Defense Resource Board for
combatant commanders, budgetary priority for readiness, and efforts “system-
atically to modernize our forces and improve our overall military potential to
implement national strategy.” Weinberger told the president that “some con-
tributors to the present debate may be uninformed of those DoD management
improvements.” Invoking the JCS as supportive of departmental management,
the secretary declared, “The JCS agree that in these respects, the present ‘sys-
tem’ has been improved.”
Meyer did not agree with that statement. Vessey told Weinberger, “One chief
disagrees . . . judging that the steps mentioned have not contributed measur-
ably to correcting our longstanding problems, and will only lull the uninformed
into believing that we are on the road to recovery.”43
Weinberger’s memorandum addressed four areas where the department
could act without statutory changes. First, he explained how the Pentagon
sought to better support the combatant commanders by looking to the JCS chair-
man “to be their spokesman on both requirements and operations.” Second,
the secretary revealed that to “assure increased continuity,” the acting chair-
man duty would rotate among the service chiefs not more frequently than quar-
terly. Third, Weinberger suggested improving the qualifications of officers in
joint positions through formal schooling and repetitive assignments, increased
rewards, and a special training program for Joint Staff officers.
Regarding one central reform issue, Weinberger explained, “I have assured
the JCS that you and I want and need good military advice that is timely, and
that we recognize that unanimity on the complex national security issues ad-
dressed by the JCS is not expected.” The secretary also proposed that the presi-
dent and joint chiefs meet once every three or four months.
The memorandum listed six major proposals requiring legislative changes
that Weinberger had asked the JCS to examine. The secretary set October  as
the deadline for the review and November  as his deadline for reporting to the
president.
The NSC staff’s review called the memorandum “just what was intended:
the start of a deliberate, focused, and coordinated analysis of the JCS struc-
ture.” Noting that Congressman White had introduced a JCS reform bill, the
staff saw “virtually no likelihood that the bill will get out of the House subcom-
mittee during this session. Furthermore, there has not been any action on the
Senate side.” The NSC staff reported, “We are not being pressed by congres-
sional action.”44
National Security Adviser Clark made the same point to Reagan in for-
warding Weinberger’s memorandum: “There is no chance that Congress will
act on the bill during this session.” The White House would await Weinberger’s
November report “to determine the next steps that may be required.”45
On July , the three new joint chiefs—Vessey, Watkins, and Gabriel—ap-
peared as the subcommittee’s last witnesses. Months earlier, when Vessey testi-
fied before the SASC during his nomination hearing for chairman, Sen. Barry
Goldwater asked him if he “would be agreeable to changes if they had to be
made?”46
“I agree with many of the things that General Jones and General Meyer
have proposed,” Vessey answered. The Armed Forces Journal interpreted this re-
sponse as significant and reported that “Vessey has given their initiatives new
impetus.”47
On July , a more cautious Vessey refrained from commenting on specific
proposals, revealing only that Weinberger had asked the JCS to review Jones’s
and Meyer’s recommendations and report the results by October .48 Watkins
and Gabriel made perfunctory remarks that complemented the new chairman’s
statement, but provided no substantive information. Gabriel’s statement totaled
only ninety-two words.
With this nondescript testimony, the Investigations Subcommittee hear-
ings ended on a whimper. After forty witnesses had offered their views and nu-
merous fora had debated the issues for five months, the last three witnesses
said the joint chiefs needed another two and one-half months before they could
recommend a position to the secretary. If White waited until October , there
would be almost no chance of enacting legislation before Congress adjourned.
He decided to press ahead without a formal DoD position.49
On July , a week before Vessey’s appearance, White introduced a JCS
reorganization bill, designated H.R. , which was referred to the HASC.
(“H.R.” designates a bill originating in the House of Representatives, while “S.”
identifies a Senate-originated bill.) The purpose of H.R.  was to “amend
title , United States Code, to provide for more efficient and effective operation
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Title  contains the vast majority of laws govern-
ing DoD, including all statutes on organizations, officials, and authorities.50
Viewing a need for only limited legislation, White, Barrett, and Lally drafted
a bill that contained just ten modest provisions. The bill would allow the JCS
chairman to provide military advice to the president and defense secretary “in
his own right.” Although they wanted to give the chairman an independent
voice, White and his two staffers decided not to go as far as Jones’s recommen-
dation to make the chairman the principal military adviser. As a check on the
chairman’s new authority, the bill also provided that a joint chief could submit
an opinion in disagreement with the chairman’s advice.
The bill would establish a deputy chairman to act in the chairman’s ab-
sence or disability. Besides specifying four-star rank for the deputy and prohib-
iting the chairman and deputy being members of the same service, H.R. 
was silent on the multitude of questions posed by creation of this new position.
Existing law provided that Joint Staff officers were “selected by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff with the approval of the chairman.” H.R.  would make the
chairman coequal with the joint chiefs in the selection of Joint Staff members.
This provision’s second part would require nominees for Joint Staff service to
be “from among those officers considered to be the most outstanding officers of
their armed force.” The bill drafters wanted to encourage the services to assign
more qualified people.
The next provision relaxed statutory restrictions on the tenure of Joint Staff
officers. It prescribed, “Members of the Joint Staff serve at the pleasure of the
secretary of defense.” This represented the first explicit congressional acknowl-
edgment that the secretary’s authority extended to the Joint Staff. The draft
provision would give the secretary discretion to extend the prescribed three-
year tour to six years.
Existing law required that officers who had served on the Joint Staff could
not be recalled for a second tour until three years had passed, with an excep-
tion for up to thirty officers. H.R.  would increase this number to one hun-
dred officers.
The next provision of White’s bill had major implications. The extant stat-
ute prescribed that the chairman manages the Joint Staff and its director “on
behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” The bill would place the chairman solely in
charge of the staff and director.
Another major proposal would allow the service chiefs and unified and
specified commanders the opportunity to comment on any Joint Staff report or
recommendation, giving warfighting commanders a greater say in decisions
that affected their commands.
The next Joint Staff provision proposed that the “secretary of defense shall
ensure that the Joint Staff is independently organized and operated [to] support
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . . . to pro-
vide for the unified strategic direction of the combatant forces, for their opera-
tion under unified command, and for their integration into an efficient team of
land, naval, and air forces.” Its substantive clauses were “The secretary of de-
fense shall ensure” and “the Joint Staff is independently organized and operated.”
The first clause emphasized the secretary’s powers and his role in overcoming
service parochialism in Joint Staff affairs. The second sought to free the Joint Staff
from the services’ control. The provision’s language used “unified direction,”
“unified command,” “integration,” and “team” in rapid succession, expressing
the drafters’ intention that the four services be truly unified. This language para-
phrased the declaration of policy of the National Security Act of .
In an effort to ensure that officers were properly rewarded for Joint Staff
service, H.R. ’s last provision specified, “that personnel policies of the armed
forces concerning promotion, retention, and assignment of officers give ap-
propriate consideration to the performance of an officer as a member of the
Joint Staff.”
On August , White convened his subcommittee to mark up H.R. .

Only eight of fourteen members attended—six of the eight Democrats and only
two Republicans. The absence of the ranking Republican, Cong. Robin Beard
of Tennessee, indicated the legislation’s limited support. Only a few members
actively participated in discussions. The others evidenced unfamiliarity with
the subject. Most had not bothered to attend the hearings.51
Congressman Les Aspin’s active participation demonstrated his grasp
of Pentagon organizational dynamics. From  to , the Wisconsin
Democrat had served as an OSD systems analyst while an army lieutenant and
captain, departing the systems analysis office just before I arrived. The sub-
committee approved his three amendments. Members agreed to specify that
“The deputy chairman may attend all meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “ but
that he “may not vote on a matter before the Joint Chiefs of Staff except when
acting as chairman.”
The other two Aspin amendments focused on the chairman’s role in per-
sonnel matters. He argued that having the chairman and other joint chiefs
coequal in selection of the Joint Staff was not workable. He gained approval of
an amendment that would specify that the chairman would select Joint Staff
officers from lists submitted by the services.
Aspin’s last amendment would require the chairman to evaluate for the
president the Joint Staff performance of any officer nominated for three or four
stars. His motive was “to give the chairman more authority over the Joint Staff.”
The subcommittee approved one other amendment, this one offered by
Cong. Samuel S. Stratton (D–New York). He proposed the creation of a Senior
Strategy Advisory Board made up of ten retired four-star officers. Stratton, who
had strong ties to the navy, compared this board to the sea service’s General
Board. Some speculated that the navy had proposed the idea to him, probably
as an alternative to Meyer’s National Military Advisory Council.
The eight attending members voted to approve and agreed to cosponsor
the revised bill. White submitted a new bill with the markup revisions, desig-
nated H.R. , for consideration by the full HASC.
The Armed Forces Journal interviewed White about H.R. . Asked why
the bill did not prescribe the chairman as the principal military adviser, White
answered, “Such a bill wouldn’t get through the Congress.” Asked to name the
bill’s most important initiative, the Texas Democrat responded, “I think the
deputy chairman is the most important part.” What were the chances of both
Houses acting on his bill before the session’s end? “If I get this bill out of the
committee before the first recess [in August, which he did],” he predicted, “I’d
say the chances are better than fifty percent.”52 As to what was behind his alle-
gation that the navy had lobbied to block changes, White speculated that the
navy had “talked to some of the members and . . . maybe some members didn’t
come [to the hearings] because the Navy cooled them.”
Members were not the only ones lobbied by the naval community. Briga-
dier General J. D. Hittle, USMC (Ret.), had tried to change Arch Barrett’s think-
ing during a series of luncheons.
Before the full committee considered the bill, White and his subcommit-
tee explained its provisions to Weinberger and Vessey at a Pentagon breakfast
meeting on August . The subcommittee did not press the secretary or chair-
man for a commitment. Weinberger reported to Reagan: “The committee has
been very cooperative in giving General Vessey an opportunity to spend some
time in his new position before being committed to long-term, substantive
reforms.”53
On August , when the HASC took up H.R. , members showed little
enthusiasm. A senior staffer explained why: “A Dick White initiated issue would
not automatically generate much interest. As a matter of fact, it would gen-
erate the reverse. People would just discard it as being most likely not sub-
stantive.”54
Congressman Dan Daniel (D-Virginia) chaired the full committee session.
After White briefly explained the bill’s provisions, Daniel expressed “apprecia-
tion to Mr. White for the enormous amount of work that he has done on this
very important function” and then proclaimed, “Without objection, the bill is
approved, and Mr. White will handle it on the floor.” The proceedings lasted a
mere six minutes.55
Despite its disinterest and reservations, the committee approved the bill.
The same senior staffer characterized the members’ thinking: “Nothing was
going to happen. They just figured that it would just die some other way. The
HASC did not regard it as a serious issue.”56
Four days after the HASC’s disinterested approval, the House, under a sus-
pension of the rules, approved the “Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act of
” by a voice vote. In Weinberger’s weekly report, he told Reagan: “This bill
was rushed through the House primarily as a courtesy to outgoing Subcom-
mittee Chairman Dick White of Texas, who is retiring at the end of the session.
The White bill is a much watered down version of some of the major JCS reor-
ganization proposals that have been proposed in recent months.”57
The modest bill disappointed reorganization supporters. On September ,
General Maxwell Taylor criticized H.R.  in a Washington Post editorial, com-
plaining that the bill “contains nothing resembling a fundamental change in
the status quo at the top of the military hierarchy, where, [the bill’s authors]
concede, all is not well.” Taylor blasted the provision to create a Senior Strate-
gic Advisory Board.58
“Without a board that will offset the inadequacy of the Joint Chiefs, there
is no justification for the bill itself. Most of the trivial undiscussed changes con-
tained in it could be effected by the secretary of defense and the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs without legislation,” Taylor wrote. “Indeed, it would be dam-
aging to national security if this bill, in its present form, became law. Its pas-
sage would foster a general belief that Congress, after months of study, has
found and corrected such weaknesses as may have existed in the Joint Chiefs
system and henceforth there will be no cause for public concern.” The general
hoped “that the Senate, before deciding to pass it, will give this bill the close
attention it deserves.”
On October , Barrett heard Jones speak to a group about the bill. “Gen-
eral Jones in effect damned the proposed legislation with faint praise,” Barrett
observed, and “noting the lack of opposition to the bill in the House, General
Jones inferred that Congress would accept a stronger measure.” Barrett dis-
agreed: “More far-reaching legislation is by no means likely to pass both houses
of Congress. In fact, the odds against any legislative reform are great and will
probably increase in the th Congress. H.R.  was carefully crafted with
the bounds of the politically feasible in mind.”59
Whether a stronger JCS reorganization bill could have passed the House in
August, , is problematic. At some level of discomfort with legislative pro-
posals, the Pentagon would have broken its self-imposed silence and objected.
At some lesser level of discomfort, service associations and retired communi-
ties would have weighed in more heavily on Capitol Hill with their opposition.
Given White’s limited support, a modest degree of opposition might have
scuttled JCS reform altogether. As events played out in the Senate, White,
Barrett, and Lally made the right decision by avoiding the risk.
White’s success in gaining House approval of a JCS reorganization bill
deceived most observers, including me. They and I perceived the House to be
solidly in favor of reform. On the contrary, the House, HASC, and many In-
vestigations Subcommittee members were not committed to these reforms.
The legislation moved quickly primarily because the administration raised
no objections. Barrett confirmed this situation when he observed: “The 
reorganization bill was a one-man bill.” That few outside of the committee
understood this worked to the proreformers’ advantage. Supporters of reor-
ganization both inside and outside of government took heart from the pas-
sage of H.R.  and initiated complementary efforts.
On November , nearly two months later, the JCS submitted its reorgani-
zation analysis. The chiefs concluded that “sweeping changes to title  USC
[United States Code] are unnecessary.” This represented a pivotal event. It led
the Pentagon to adopt a rigid antireform posture and eventually to bitterly con-
front Congress.60
In his memorandum to Weinberger, Vessey explained that the joint chiefs
had “reached agreement that while there were flaws in JCS organization, other
problems proceeded from relationships between OJCS [Organization of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff] and OSD which over the years have obscured and diluted the
military advice you and the president are by law entitled to receive.” The chair-
man added, “We agreed that we can work with you to clarify staff roles and
responsibilities so that your military and civilian staffs can serve you better.”
The JCS analysis had confused cause and effect. Presidents and defense secre-
taries had increasingly turned to civilian staffs for counsel in the absence of
quality JCS advice. This practice would not end until the JCS improved the use-
fulness of its advice.
On November  Weinberger advised President Reagan: “The chiefs rec-
ommend only two legislative changes. First, they propose to ease the existing
restrictions on the size of the Joint Staff and tenure of its officers. Second, they
propose that the law be changed to reflect formally the existing practice of in-
serting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the chain of command be-
tween the secretary of defense and commanders in chief of the unified and
specified commands.” Weinberger said he agreed “that these changes are de-
sirable.”61
The secretary also informed the president that he agreed with the JCS “that
we should not support additional statutory changes at this time. Specifically, I
do not consider it desirable or necessary: a. To specify that the chairman is your
principal military advisor; b. To seek authorization for a full-time, four-star vice
chairman; c. To subordinate the Joint Staff specifically to the chairman vice the
JCS; or d. To supplant the JCS with a Council of Advisors composed of senior
officers other than chiefs of service at this time.”
Weinberger’s memorandum also advised that the JCS wanted “a larger
role in staffing and advising on ‘major decisions of strategy, policy, and force
requirements’ than they currently do, and that the role of the Office of the
Secretary of Defense should be correspondingly diminished. This is a serious
proposal and should, and will be, carefully considered.” Nonetheless, the re-
forms the chiefs recommended offered little prospect that their advice on strat-
egy, policy, and force requirements would improve.
Weinberger did not ask the president for his views, and the president did
not respond until after the end of the year. As a result, the administration and
DoD never took a position on JCS reorganization in . On December ,
Weinberger responded to a request from Congressman White for the depart-
ment’s views: “I am currently reviewing the Chiefs’ recommendations and,
when I have completed this process, I plan to discuss the issue with the presi-
dent.” Weinberger said he would get back to White “once we have developed a
firm administration position.”62
Despite the modesty of H.R.  and its limited support, White, Barrett,
and Lally made significant contributions in . They had kept the issue of
organizational reform alive until others could initiate more powerful efforts.
They had also begun the process of severing the forty-year alliance between
Congress and the services on organization—a partnership that had inhibited
needed advances.
The legislative efforts of White and his two staffers also advanced critical
concepts. Key among these was a more appropriate recognition of the defense
secretary’s authority. For thirty-five years, Congress had denied the secretary a
full measure of power in order to preserve the services’ independence and en-
sure a strong military voice. Although H.R.  would only slightly expand
the secretary’s authority, it had sown the seeds. The bill moved toward empow-
ering the chairman to break the JCS’s consensual approach. The legislation
also recognized the need to better prepare and reward Joint Staff officers and
remove statutory constraints that denied effective utilization of their expertise.
Although the legislation did not address the weaknesses of the unified com-
mands, it did endorse their increased involvement in Washington activities.
Finally, H.R.  drew attention to DoD’s inadequate emphasis on strategy
formulation.
Despite its intellectual contributions and foresighted interest, the HASC
Investigations Subcommittee would be relegated by partisan politics to being a
secondary theater in the reform struggle. Although the Democratic Party con-
trolled the House, a Republican occupied the White House, and his party held
a majority in the Senate. Whatever position the administration decided to take
on reorganization, it would look to the Senate as its Capitol Hill ally. The SASC
would be the battleground where this fight would be won or lost.
Before White left office, he wanted to make every effort to convince the Sen-
ate to act on the House bill. He focused his efforts on a fellow Texan, Republican
senator John Tower. As adjournment approached, the Texas connection be-
came White’s only hope.
CHAPTER 4
Texas Politics
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
—Charles Dudley Warner,
My Summer in a Garden
S enator John Tower did not want to be doing this. The Armed Services Com-
mittee chairman had other important business to conclude in the final
hectic days of the lame-duck session. His pressing agenda did not include Joint
Chiefs of Staff reform, but he had been unable to say no. The four-term Texas
Republican had promised to conduct a hearing on the subject. So, at ten min-
utes after ten on Thursday morning, December , , the chairman gav-
eled the hearing to order.
Tower had equivocated for so long on scheduling the hearing that it was
doomed to being chaotic and poorly attended. Committees did not normally
inquire into a new subject in a session’s dying days, when the Senate focused
on important legislation ready for enactment. Only nine days remained until
Christmas, and the Senate had critical bills to consider before it could adjourn.
Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) anticipated an all-night session
that Thursday evening, followed by a full day on Friday and possibly Saturday
and Sunday sessions.
When Tower started the hearing, the Senate had already convened for the
day and roll-call votes were expected throughout the morning. Given the press
of business on the Senate floor, few members were expected to attend the hear-
ing. Those who did would have to leave for each vote. Tower would likely have
to repeatedly recess the hearing.
Several sources had pressured the Texas Republican for a JCS reform hear-
ing. Although Tower had responded with promises, he had found reasons for
Texas Politics 83
not fulfilling them. But after vacillating for months, Tower found that there
was one request he could not disregard: Cong. Dick White from El Paso was
retiring at the end of the session, and he had been after Tower for months to
raise the JCS reorganization issue in the Senate. He wanted Tower to at least
hold a committee hearing on the subject before he retired. Tower told me he
simply could not “ignore that request from a fellow Texan.” Nonetheless, SASC
staff director Rhett B. Dawson said that even though Tower had told White he
would hold a hearing, Tower “did not take JCS reorganization seriously at that
juncture.” According to Dawson, Tower wanted “to put the hearing off to a point
in the session where it would no longer be relevant.” He also intended “to de-
sign the hearing so that it would not give comfort to those agitating for reform.”1
Tower did not mention pressure he had received seven months earlier from
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), a SASC member. On May , during the floor de-
bate on the defense authorization bill, Nunn sought a commitment from Tower
for JCS reform hearings. To force the issue, Nunn offered an amendment re-
quiring the defense secretary to submit a report analyzing proposed JCS re-
forms. After explaining his amendment, Nunn inquired, “I ask the chairman
of the committee whether he plans to hold hearings on this issue.”2
Tower agreed with Nunn that JCS reform was “an enormously important
subject.” Speaking of the JCS’s role in the decision-making process, the chair-
man observed, “I think it leaves very much to be desired.” Tower seemed to
contradict his only other public pronouncement on the subject. Two months
earlier, he had told journalists he did not expect Congress to “support the Dra-
conian overhaul” suggested by General Jones.3
Now Tower made the commitment Nunn sought: “I give the senator from
Georgia my assurance—and I think he will have virtually unanimous sup-
port of the committee—that we will have hearings at the earliest possible
date.”4
Having obtained this commitment, Nunn withdrew his amendment.
The summer passed without Tower making any move to fulfill his commit-
ment. The Senate received and referred H.R. , the House-passed JCS reor-
ganization bill, to the SASC on August . Still, the chairman took no action.
In mid-September, I asked Rick Finn, a bright young staffer working with
me, to prepare a memorandum to Tower reminding him of his floor statement.
The key paragraph read: “In light of your assurance to Senator Nunn and the
importance of this issue, we recommend that the committee conduct two or
three hearings in the short time left in this session of Congress. These hearings
would not be designed to prepare for the immediate markup of H.R.  or
any other similar proposals. Instead, they would be meant to begin to ‘air out
the issue.’”5
Tower agreed to schedule a hearing during the last week of September.
From a list of ten possible witnesses, he selected Congressman White and three
former JCS chairmen, Generals Jones and Taylor and Adm. Thomas H. Moorer.
Finn’s memorandum advised Tower not to invite Weinberger or any serving
joint chiefs, reasoning that “before late October, these officials would have little
to contribute simply because their own internal review would be unfinished.”
But Tower had to postpone this hearing “due to the last-minute rush of
Senate business [before adjourning for campaigning] and the unavailability
of General David Jones.” In late October, the Armed Forces Journal inquired
about the chairman’s plans. Tower’s press aide, Linda Hill, assured the Jour-
nal that hearings would be “rescheduled during the lame-duck session.” As
to prospects for legislation, the Journal reported, “Hill strongly cautioned that
the committee wouldn’t necessarily ‘take unilateral congressional action’ or
approve the House legislation without first hearing the views of the new JCS
leadership.”6 In other words, “There is no way that there will be legislation
this year.”
I went to work for Tower when he became SASC chairman in January, .
Two and one-half years earlier, then Chairman John C. Stennis—the vener-
able Mississippi Democrat—hired me out of the Pentagon to serve as the
committee’s senior foreign policy adviser. Stennis was my nominal boss, but
my real boss was Nunn. Nearing the end of his first six-year term, Nunn was
building a reputation as a defense intellectual, and he was increasingly inter-
ested in international security affairs. With Stennis’s blessing, Nunn tasked me
with major projects on East Asia and the Persian Gulf.
The Republicans unexpectedly became the majority party in the Senate
when Reagan won his landslide victory in , and although Senate commit-
tee leaders rarely asked staffers to cross party lines, Tower asked me to work for
him. He planned to assign me the same foreign policy responsibilities that I had
performed for the Democrats.
I was not surprised that Tower agreed to White’s plea for a hearing. He
tenaciously fought public battles, but he was easily swayed in private. He did
not like confrontation and often yielded quickly. Despite this weakness, the com-
mittee staff admired Tower. He was bright, knowledgeable, politically coura-
geous, and accessible—key attributes that congressional staffers look for in a
boss. Unlike most senators, Tower was not a lawyer. Before winning a special
election in May, , to fill Vice Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Senate seat, he had
spent the previous ten years as a political science professor at Midwestern Uni-
versity in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Tower studied at the University of London in . While there, he be-
came an Anglophile, which was noticeable in many aspects of his life. He dressed
in proper British style and ordered his suits and shirts from London. He also
smoked British cigarettes, which he kept in a silver case in his breast pocket.
When Tower first appeared in Washington, political commentator David Broder
Texas Politics 85
observed that “an implausibly dapper and polished English-looking gent was
now speaking for the brawny Lone Star state.”7
Tower listed his height as five foot five and one-half, but that figure prob-
ably stretched the truth by several inches. The thirty-five-year-old college pro-
fessor turned senator wrote that upon his Washington arrival “every story
seemed to dwell on my height—or lack thereof. The term ‘diminutive’ was firmly
affixed to me in that period, and someone wrote that I often needed to stand on
a wooden crate to see over the top of the podium. That isn’t true, but it never
stopped those who needed to fill a couple of column inches of newsprint.”8
What Tower lacked in size, he made up in intellect. Besides his studies in
England, which stirred his interest in foreign affairs, Tower had a bachelor’s
degree in political science from Southwestern University and a master’s degree
from Southern Methodist University. By the time he became chairman, Tower
had studied defense and foreign policy issues for decades and knew key legisla-
tors from many countries, especially in Europe.
Tower was also a great public speaker. Speaking from notes instead of a
prepared text enabled him to exploit the cadence and eloquence of his own
speech. I wrote Tower’s foreign policy speeches. He and I would sometimes pre-
pare them in an unusual order. I would write the full text of a speech, and
when the chairman was comfortable with the logic, I would reduce the speech
to a two- or three-page outline. After he agreed with the outline, I would boil it
down to one page. From that single piece of paper, Tower would deliver a bril-
liant speech.
The senator was also unparalleled as an extemporaneous speaker. During
one visit to London, John Nott, the British secretary of state for defense, hosted
an elegant, formal dinner in Tower’s honor at Admiralty House. When Nott
offered an after dinner toast, Tower responded with an extemporaneous speech
on British-American relations. The Texan’s poignant remarks brought tears to
many eyes. When the dinner ended, Nott rushed over to me and said, “Con-
gratulations on those remarks you prepared for the senator. You are an out-
standing writer. He’s fortunate to have you on his staff.”
“That wasn’t my work,” I replied. “That was all Senator Tower.”
Nott said as he walked off, “And modest, too.”
Although Tower practiced sophisticated British behavior, he never over-
came some habits he had formed as a young World War II sailor. Despite his
upbringing as the son and grandson of Methodist ministers and his scripture-
quoting ability, Tower frequently expressed himself in salty four-letter words.
When he did so in front of women, he never tired of using the sophomoric
expression, “Pardon my French.”
Tower enlisted in the navy at age seventeen, serving in his terms as a “deck
ape” on an amphibious gunship in the western Pacific. After his discharge at
war’s end, he remained in the Naval Reserve. Throughout his Senate career, he
was viewed as a navy man. While serving as SASC chairman, Tower—then the
most senior enlisted navy reservist—was proud to be promoted to senior chief
boatswain’s mate and later master chief boatswain’s mate.
Shortly after the November election, Finn and I sent Tower a memorandum
offering options on rescheduling JCS reform hearings. We recommended two
hearings, but the chairman decided to hold only one and invite the same four
witnesses planned for the postponed September hearing. Staff Director James F.
McGovern, who had replaced Dawson in late October, selected December  for
the hearing. This late date would clearly diminish the hearing’s potential utility.9
Tower assigned me lead responsibility for the hearing. I invited each wit-
ness to appear and explained the planned approach. The three retired officers
11. Admiral Tom Hayward, chief of naval operations,

promoting Sen. John Tower, chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, to senior chief boatswain’s mate in
the Naval Reserve. (U.S. Navy photo.)
Texas Politics 87
were placed on a single panel. Joint appearance of proponents and opponents

provided opportunities for informative cross-examinations. When Admiral
Moorer was unavailable, Adm. James L. Holloway became the navy witness.
As I began to organize the hearing, a retired marine, Brig. Gen. J. D. Hittle, in-
vited me to lunch to provide the navy/Marine Corps perspective on reform.
Hittle’s influence with SASC members compelled me to accept.
Organizing the hearing also meant preparing the chairman, informing him
of the views of each witness, and preparing questions for him to ask at the
hearing. Formulating these questions was an art. You wanted to compel the
witness to respond with an informative, meaningful statement, but you needed
to be careful not to get the chairman in over his head. He did not have time to
study the issues in detail, and you did not want the questioning to publicly
expose his lack of knowledge. One rule of thumb for avoiding unpleasant sur-
prises advised: “Don’t ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.”
Why ask a question if you already know the answer? Hearings are not held to
educate staffers, they are held to inform senators, media, and public.
As I reviewed prior statements made by the four witnesses, I read an obser-
vation by General Jones: “No one can really understand the complex nature of
the Pentagon bureaucracy unless he or she has served there as an action officer.”
Having spent ten years as a Pentagon civilian action officer, I heartily agreed.
Working in the Pentagon is an experience. The building is huge, like the
department it houses. It has more than seventeen miles of corridors and twelve
hundred toilets. Its unending, rigid rows of straight lines equate architectur-
ally to a precise military formation. Its stone is khaki—a traditional military
color. Many corridors in Washington’s largest office building look like the wings
of a museum. Artifacts portray America’s wars, warriors, and war machines.
The portraits of civilian and military leaders—from the republic’s beginning
to the current day—stare down at all who pass by. The building reflects the
tradition-bound nature of all militaries.
Jones understood the services’ attachment to the past: “The very founda-
tion of each service rests on imbuing its members with pride in its missions, its
doctrine and its customs and discipline—all of which are steeped in traditions.”
But tradition had a downside: “While these deep-seated service distinctions are
important in fostering a fighting spirit, cultivating them engenders tendencies
to look inward and to insulate the institutions against outside challenges.”10
As evidence, Jones cited resistance to ideas and inventions whose time had
come: “The Navy kept building sailing ships long after the advent of steam
power. Machine guns and tanks were developed in the United States, but our
Army rejected them until long after they were accepted in Europe. The horse
cavalry survived essentially unchanged right up until World War II despite evi-
dence that its utility was greatly diminished decades earlier. Even Army Air
Corps officers were required to wear spurs until the late s. . . . The result of
this rigidity has been an ever-widening gap between the need to adapt to chang-
ing conditions and our ability to do so.”
When General Eisenhower first reported to the Pentagon as army chief of staff,
he became lost in the “building’s labyrinth of corridors.” Accustomed to go-
ing to and from the general officers’ mess with other officers, never paying
much attention to the route, one day, he recalled, “I ventured the return trip
alone. Although I reached the E ring safely, I discovered that this ring, the out-
ermost corridor of the building, was an endless vista of doors, every one of
them identical in appearance. I had not the slightest idea which was mine.”
Eisenhower observed that the building “had apparently been designed to con-
fuse any enemy who might infiltrate it.” Eisenhower might have been the most
notable officer to get lost in the Pentagon’s physical maze, but he had plenty of
company.11
Ideas—even great ones—also had to negotiate the bureaucratic maze cre-
ated by the building’s twenty-four thousand employees. A staggering number
of offices, representing dozens of diverse perspectives, reviewed each idea.
Moving an idea along the path toward approval required enormous time, en-
ergy, and skill. Frustrations with this horrendous process sparked fitting nick-
names for the Pentagon: Five-Sided Squirrel Cage, Potomac Puzzle Palace,
Disneyland East, Concrete Carousel. When the Defense Department performed
poorly, many referred to the Pentagon as Fort Fumble or Malfunction Junction.
Few military personnel wanted to serve in the Squirrel Cage. In , a
newspaper article reported that “distaste for the Pentagon and its methods is
common within the military. Part of it is the natural resentment of the fighter
pilot who has been reassigned to push memos. Part of it arises from a genuine
worry as to whether the nation is managing its forces wisely.”12
Pentagon work—with its frustrating paperwork, exhausting meetings, bu-
reaucratic infighting, and slow progress—did not resemble military activity in
the field. Uniformed personnel reported that Pentagon duty did not reward tra-
ditional soldierly virtues like “courage, self-reliance, decisiveness and a will-
ingness to accept responsibility.”13 Officers viewed as fortunate any officer who
could declare, “I never served a day in the Pentagon.” But officers assigned there
throw themselves into their work. Bright, dedicated, professional warrior-bu-
reaucrats vigorously and relentlessly tried to carry out all assigned tasks.
Despite their commitment to the job, military workers harshly judged Pen-
tagon organization and procedures: “The feeling that the military is run by
committee instead of leaders is strong. In particular at the triservice [JCS] level
the complaint is, as one officer put it, that no one is in charge. Each service
jealously guards its autonomy. Little is done until a consensus is reached, which
historically has meant waste and duplication.”14 Why this was the case was, as
officers said to me, “Way above their pay grade.”
Texas Politics 89
During my ten years in the Pentagon, where I worked extensively with the
Joint Staff and reviewed reams of JCS papers, I saw firsthand the intellectual
constraints imposed by service dominance. My Joint Staff counterparts would
complain: “We’re working our butts off. But what are we achieving? Nothing.
We can’t objectively examine issues because the services won’t let us.” Most
could not wait until their tours in the building were over.
One assignment that I undertook in  at the direction of Defense Sec-
retary Donald H. Rumsfeld revealed the suppressive grip of the services.
Rumsfeld believed that the Joint Staff could and should provide independent
military advice on key budget proposals. I was instructed to work with senior
Joint Staff representatives in developing procedures to make Joint Staff resource
expertise available to the secretary. But the Joint Staff wanted no part of these
contentious issues in which services had strong interests. They objected to
every possible approach. After two months of bureaucratic mud wrestling,
the effort had to be abandoned. Having personally observed the brokenness
of the joint system, I understood the heavy odds against the changes Jones
sought.
On November , the New York Times Magazine published a long article by Jones
titled “What’s Wrong With Our Defense Establishment.” When the former chair-
man told me that he planned to submit this article as his written statement for
the hearing, I carefully studied and summarized it for Tower.15
Jones’s article opened a new front in the debate. It moved beyond JCS re-
form and examined other Pentagon deficiencies. Jones gave prominent atten-
tion to problems in the department’s Planning, Programming, and Budgeting
System (PPBS). He charged that the “defense guidance” document, a key plan-
ning paper, “always demands greater force capabilities than the budget con-
straints will allow” and “does little to set meaningful priorities.” In Jones’s view,
the programming and budgeting phases produced “a defense budget that is
derived primarily from the disparate desires of the individual services rather
than from a well-integrated plan.”
Jones tackled an explosive subject when he judged civilian control “more
often apparent than real” on nonoperational matters. He asserted that the lack
of comprehensive military advice on alternative strategies or weapon systems
weakened the defense secretary. “It is ironic that the services have . . . been able
to defeat attempts to bring order out of chaos by arguing that a source of alter-
native military advice for the president and secretary of defense runs the risk
of undermining civilian control,” Jones noted.
The former JCS chairman quoted the Chairman’s Special Study Group
report’s finding that “a certain amount of service independence is healthy and
desirable, but the balance now favors the parochial interests of the services too
much and the larger needs of the nation’s defenses too little.”
The retired general seemed to have Weinberger in mind when he stated,

“Civilian defense leaders have been reluctant to push hard for changes, either
because they thought they could not succeed or because they did not want to
expend the necessary political capital, which they believed was better spent on
gaining support for the defense budget.” Jones added that many resisted “rais-
ing basic organizational issues,” fearing that opponents “would use admissions
of organizational inefficiency to argue for further budget cuts.”
The article advocated four new changes. First, Jones recommended the
transfer of systems analysts from OSD to the Joint Staff. Second, he advanced
the view that many of OSD’s five hundred military officer positions should
be eliminated. Both proposals would strengthen the Joint Staff at OSD’s ex-
pense. With respect to PPBS deficiencies, Jones envisioned more independent
cost analyses, increased funding reserves for unexpected cost growth or con-
tingency operations, and early, tough decisions to preclude starting
unaffordable programs. His last recommendation was that “administrative
matters should be decentralized to the services.” Although Jones’s proposals
were weak, they broadened the debate to include comprehensive reorgani-
zation.
To help inform Tower, I collected prior statements by General Taylor, in-
cluding excerpts from his landmark book, The Uncertain Trumpet, published in
. That work had advanced a new national security strategy called “flexible
response,” which the Kennedy administration adopted. Taylor’s book also rec-
ommended abolishing the JCS and separating those “responsibilities of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff which can be dealt with by committee methods from those which
require one-man responsibility.” Taylor suggested replacing the JCS with “a
single defense chief of staff for the one-man functions and by a new advisory
body called provisionally the Supreme Military Council.”16
Tower was the only senator present when he started the hearing. The hearing
would be more than half over before another senator joined him. Tower began
by welcoming his “distinguished colleague from the State of Texas, Dick White,
with whom it has been my pleasure to work over the years.”17 White then de-
livered a straightforward summary of the House bill, briefly answered two ques-
tions from Tower, and departed.
The chairman then announced that the panel of three former JCS chair-
men would testify in the following order: Jones, Taylor, and Holloway. “As an
old naval person, I always like to give the Navy the last word,” Tower joked.
Jones, testifying on JCS reforms for the first time since his retirement six
months earlier, termed the problem “the most important defense issue facing
the Congress and the nation. It makes issues on the MX [intercontinental bal-
listic missile] and others pale in comparison.” The retired general commented
that while serving as chairman, he thought “it would be appropriate that I
Texas Politics 91
limit myself to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” In retirement, Jones did not feel so
constrained. He urged the adoption of a broad reform perspective: “I do not
think one can address the issue of the Joint Chiefs of Staff without looking at
the bigger issue of what is wrong in defense and what are the problems, not
only in the Pentagon, but here in Congress.”
Jones’s oral statement also advocated “strengthening the role of the secre-
tary of defense” and providing him “better advice on alternatives” and pressed
the need for changes to end “services dominating the joint system.” The former
chairman reiterated his belief that reform should be studied “in great depth
and in a broad context of our overall defense to include the role of Congress.”
Noting the inadequacy of that day’s environment, he recommended proceed-
ing “in an atmosphere next year that is not quite as hectic as this crisis of the
lame-duck session.”
As soon as Jones finished characterizing the atmosphere as hectic, Tower
recessed the hearing so he could race to the Senate floor for a vote.
When Tower reconvened the hearing, General Taylor presented his views
on JCS deficiencies and recommended fixes. He criticized the House bill as “most
disappointing because of the failure to come to grips with the major defects in
the system” and advised the committee to “give the House bill the close atten-
tion it deserves and reject it.”
Admiral Holloway did not like the House bill either. Not because it was too
weak, but because it was unnecessary and would “violate the safeguards for
the assurance of civilian control and substantially reduce the opportunity for
arriving at the best military decisions crucial to our national survival.”
Tower showed signs of discomfort as the admiral forcefully defended the
status quo. This was beginning to look like  again with the navy opposing
army and air force proposals to strengthen unification.
After another recess in response to a floor vote, the chairman questioned
the admiral: “I happen to be one of those who has been concerned in the past
that our civilian officials have not relied enough on professional military advice.
Now, if you don’t support any organizational changes that have been proposed
this morning, how will you enhance the role of military leaders in national se-
curity decision making?”
“The principal reason that the civilian leadership did not take the advice
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . . . was because the chiefs were not giving advice
that the civilian leadership wanted to hear,” Holloway responded. “I believe
that the present organization and concept is a sound one.”
As the admiral was providing this answer, Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia),
a former navy secretary, arrived. His questioning of the witnesses further high-
lighted Holloway’s divergence from Jones and Taylor. To one Warner question,
Jones replied that “Admiral Holloway and I must be looking at a different bill
because the way I interpret this bill is the way that General Taylor does, that
the changes are trivial. . . . I agree with General Taylor that if we pass this bill
the country might think we have solved the problem. The problems are far
greater than this.”
Nunn arrived just as Tower and Warner were departing for another floor
vote. In an unusual move, instead of recessing, Republican Tower allowed Demo-
crat Nunn to chair the hearing in his absence. The Georgia senator asked Jones
and Holloway to clarify their differences. The admiral answered, “The disagree-
ment is that I think the Joint Chiefs are doing their job properly. General Jones,
I think, believes that they are not.”
Turning to Taylor, Nunn asked, “Can we look back in our history to any
point where we have functioned the way you would envision that we should
function?”
“I do not think we ever have,” the army general answered. “That does not
forgive us today, because the danger has changed. The time factor has changed.
The complexities of weapons have changed.”
Tower returned to close the hearing. Senator Jeremiah Denton (D-Ala-
bama), a former admiral, arrived just as the hearing was ending. When he asked
if Denton had any questions, Tower called him “Admiral Denton.” The power-
ful SASC chairman quickly corrected himself. “I’m sorry. Being only a chief
petty officer, I am awed by rank,” he said.
Adjourning the hearing, Tower announced, “This is only the first in what
I expect to be a number of hearings that will be continued into the th Con-
gress.” It was a pledge that encouraged many reformers. I had been on the
Senate staff for too long to put too much weight on such promises, most of
which are never fulfilled. This hearing was a political courtesy to a retiring
representative, and it had occurred only because the representative hailed
from Texas.
The Joint Staff prepared a summary of the hearing for internal use. It
included the following impressions: “General Jones and Admiral Holloway
were forceful and clashed on most points. General Taylor’s health is failing
rapidly and his delivery was weak, but his responsiveness to questions showed
his intellect is still great. Senator Nunn is clearly coming from a reformer’s
perspective and sees the issue in a larger DoD-government context. Senator
Warner seems to lean somewhat [in the] same way. Senator Tower, except for
his ‘amen’ about putting Congress’ house in order on [the] defense budget, is
hard to read.”18
The hearing revealed little to me other than the fact that Jones had joined
Taylor in opposing the House bill, but the House bill was gasping its last breaths.
It would die when the Senate adjourned on December .
Although I learned little, Tower learned something important: the navy,
as represented by Holloway’s mainstream views, fiercely objected to even the
weak House reforms. From his first foray onto the reorganization battlefield,
Texas Politics 93
Tower understood the dangers posed by this issue. Observing Tower’s discom-
fort, I did not expect him to take the initiative in the new Congress on reorga-
nizing the JCS or any other Pentagon component. I was certain that, having
fulfilled his commitment to White and shown good faith toward Nunn, the Texas
Republican would not make additional moves without significant pressure.
Tower soon surprised me.
CHAPTER 5
Unfinished Business
Nothing great was ever achieved
without enthusiasm.
—Emerson, The Selected Writings
of Ralph Waldo Emerson
W hen the Ninety-Eighth Congress convened in January, , Cong. Bill

Nichols of Alabama decided to chair the Investigations Subcommittee
of the House Armed Services Committee, where he ranked fourth among
Democrats. Nichols was following in the footsteps of retired Texas congress-
man Dick White.
The HASC members respected Nichols much more than they had White.
The Alabama congressman’s views and fervent patriotism fit well with the
panel’s conservative, promilitary orientation. In his fourteen years on the com-
mittee, he had compiled a solid record. The work of the Investigations Subcom-
mittee would benefit from Nichols’s stature.
On February , Nichols and the subcommittee’s new ranking Republican,
Larry Hopkins of Kentucky, met with John Lally and Arch Barrett to identify
areas of inquiry for the subcommittee during the Ninety-Eighth Congress. The
staffers raised JCS reorganization as a potential topic. Knowing of the previous
year’s exhaustive efforts, the slow-talking Nichols said: “This is unfinished busi-
ness. We need to put it on our agenda.” Although the new chairman felt obli-
gated to carry out this work, it was not his issue. Nichols saw the unfinished
business belonging to Dick White.1
Quiet and slow to anger, the Alabamian was described as “a huge man, tall
and shaped like a barrel.” At Alabama Polytechnic Institute (later Auburn
Unfinished Business 95
University), Nichols starred in football, earning three letters and serving as team
captain. He studied agriculture and received his bachelor’s degree in . Two
years later, Nichols earned a master’s degree in agronomy.2
World War II interrupted Nichols’s agriculture career. An ROTC gradu-
ate, he entered the army in March, , as an artillery second lieutenant.
His first action came in the Allied invasion of France. On Nov. , , dur-
ing the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, a land mine shattered his left foot. Com-
plications developed, and he lost his leg. Although doctors expected him to
die, Nichols recovered slowly. The army finally discharged him as a captain in
early .
Nichols returned to his hometown of Sylacauga, started farming, and em-
barked on a business career. He entered politics in  and won a seat in the
state House of Representatives. Four years later, the electorate placed him in
the state Senate. Governor George Wallace asked Nichols to serve as a floor
leader, handling education and agricultural legislation.
Nichols entered the U.S. House of Representatives in January, , fol-
lowing his election to represent Alabama’s Third District. He was not consid-
ered a legislative activist and was often reluctant to speak out on issues. As a
result of his chairmanship of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, Nichols
was best known as a protector of military personnel, especially enlisted men
and women.
According to Barrett, “Bill Nichols inspired more loyalty and love among
the people who worked for him than any other individual I have ever known in
my life—absolute affection.” G. Kim Wincup, an aide on the Military Personnel
Subcommittee, called Nichols “absolutely one of the most wonderful guys I
ever met.”3
Barrett explained that Nichols always treated people “with tremendous
dignity. Complete strangers could go into his office, and they would feel, in just
a few minutes . . . that they had been brought into the circle of someone who
was interested in what they had to say and the contribution they had to make.”
Barrett added, “He made every member of his staff feel very important to him.”4
Nichols said that to do well in public office, you have to “like people. You’ve
got to understand people. You’ve got to be able to be interested in people’s
problems.”5
Regarding Nichols’s work, Barrett observed, “Mr. Nichols had the best judg-
ment of any man—certainly any congressman—that I have ever been associ-
ated with.” He “did not juggle the thousand issues that a congressman had from
day-to-day. You had to spin him up, remind him where you were the last time
you talked about this issue, then bring him forward, and lay out a particular
problem. But if you did that, and then told him the various options, pros and
cons, Mr. Nichols would make a decision, and rather quickly. . . . Six months later
I could look back at that decision, and he invariably made the right decision.”6
12. Second Lieutenant William F. Nichols, USA, at Fort

Bragg, North Carolina, about 1941.
(Auburn University Archives.)
Nichols, Wincup commented, “was never really regarded as an intellec-

tual on military thinking, but he pushed through the Defense Officer Person-
nel Management Act with all its intricate details. He spent the time and learned
it. And he became willing to do the same thing on reorganization.”7
Nichols and seven other members were newly appointed to the Investiga-
tions Subcommittee. Only six congressmen returned from the  subcom-
mittee that had passed the JCS reform bill. The sole Republican holdover was
Hopkins, who had not participated in the earlier work.
On February , at the subcommittee’s initial meeting, Nichols briefed mem-
bers on the prospective agenda. He raised “completion of legislative action” on
JCS reform as the initial topic. Nichols and Hopkins “agreed that we should
solicit the views of Secretary Weinberger, General Vessey, chairman of the JCS,
and the other members of the Joint Chiefs, on the reorganization legislation
. . . immediately.” Then further action would be planned. The subcommittee
supported this course. Anticipating this outcome, Nichols had already written
to Weinberger asking for DoD’s views on H.R. , the  bill.8
In mid-January, President Reagan concurred with Secretary Weinberger’s en-

dorsement of the JCS’s limited reorganization recommendations. The president
wrote to the secretary: “We should take advantage of this opportunity to im-
prove the ability of the national military command structure to respond to the
challenges ahead.”9
In late February, Weinberger responded to Nichols’s letter, announcing that
“the administration is currently in the process of preparing legislation on this
subject [to] be submitted to Congress in the near future.” He communicated for
the first time that the administration did not favor major JCS reorganization:
“The Joint Chiefs have not proposed and the administration is not at this time
considering any major reforms in the statutes establishing the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. This is because we feel that the existing provisions of title  create a gen-
erally satisfactory structure.”10
Weinberger’s letter finally established the battle lines. The administration
had taken a full year to decide whether it did or did not favor major JCS reorga-
nization. Weinberger had decided to support the recommendations of his new
JCS chairman, and the president had decided to support his defense secretary.
This legislative-executive split magnified the challenge of reforming the
Pentagon.
Responding to Nichols’s request for the administration’s views on the
House-passed bill, Weinberger said he would “provide the subcommittee with
our evaluation of that bill at the same time as we forward our own legislative
proposal.”
On April , the subcommittee decided to schedule JCS reorganization hear-
ings. “I believe that we should have Secretary Weinberger’s views, the recom-
mendations of the Joint Chiefs, and the administration’s legislative proposal so
that we can commence consideration of this very important issue at an early
date,” said Nichols.11
Despite their correspondence, neither Nichols nor Weinberger made the first
move on reorganization legislation in . That action belonged to Cong. Ike
Skelton, a four-term Missouri Democrat whose interest in military affairs long
predated his  appointment to the HASC. Skelton was not an Investigations
Subcommittee member, and he had not participated in the  hearings or
legislation. Nevertheless, on April , he introduced the “Military Command
Reorganization Act of ,” which the House designated H.R. .
Skelton was especially interested in the reform proposals of Gen. Maxwell

Taylor, a fellow Missourian. When Skelton decided to submit his own legisla-
tive proposal, he sent Barrett and Tommy Glakas from his personal staff to in-
terview Taylor, and then asked Barrett to translate Taylor’s broad ideas into
concrete provisions. Before submitting the legislation, the congressman met
with Taylor and “went over his bill line-by-line with General Taylor for two
hours.”12
House Resolution  would abolish the JCS, including the chairman,
and replace them with a single chief of staff, who would serve as the principal
military adviser. Two deputy chiefs would assist the new chief. The bill’s other
major provision would create a National Military Council consisting of five or
six distinguished officers recalled from retirement or on their last assignment
to advise the president and defense secretary on policy, strategy, and command
responsibilities and assess policy and program implementation.
The Skelton bill paralleled General Meyer’s proposals. Both would end the
dual-hatting of service chiefs, create an advisory council to perform the strat-
egy and planning function, and vest other responsibilities in a single officer.
Given Skelton’s interest, Nichols invited him to attend the subcommittee’s hear-
ings. The Missouri congressman proved to be the chairman’s biggest supporter
on JCS reform.
On April , DoD’s general counsel, William H. Taft IV, submitted to Con-
gress the Pentagon’s legislative proposal on JCS reorganization, designated
H.R.  by the House. Taft’s transmittal letter said, “The proposal would
place the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the national military chain
of command, and would promote the efficiency of the Joint Staff by eliminat-
ing statutory restrictions that are disadvantageous to the effectiveness of that
organization.” Three proposed changes would achieve the second purpose:
The bill would increase the maximum peacetime tour on the Joint Staff, in-
cluding the director’s, from three to four years. It would reduce the minimum
interval between Joint Staff assignments from three to two years. Last, it would
remove the four-hundred-officer limit on the size of the Joint Staff. Each change
was consistent with improvements sought in the  House bill.13
The bill language and explanatory text placing the chairman in the chain
of command did not achieve the same clarity. Although one part of the bill
language added a new duty for the chairman to “serve in the national mili-
tary chain of command,” the most prominent language suggested that he was
not actually “in” the chain: “The chain of command runs from the president
to the secretary [of defense] and through the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, to
the combatant commands. Orders to combatant commands shall be issued by
the president or the secretary through the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
When I read the bill, I did not think “through the chairman” meant the same
as “placed in the chain of command.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication , Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,

then defined chain of command as: “The succession of commanding officers
from a superior to a subordinate through which command is exercised.” On
one hand, DoD’s language said they wanted to make the chairman part of the
succession of commanding officers. On the other hand, Taft’s letter explained
that this change would “make explicit his functions as a link between the sec-
retary of defense and the unified and specified commands.” It also explained
that “The practice has been for the secretary of defense to communicate with
the combatant commands through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and the proposed legislation would formalize this arrangement.” The words
link and communicator did not create for me the image of someone who was
part of a succession of commanding officers. I thought the idea of clarifying
the chairman’s role as the link and communicator had merit, but I judged that
giving the chairman command of all forces was not likely to sell, at least not in
the Senate.14
The department’s confused chain of command proposal raised doubts
about the depth of its understanding of defense organization. Moreover, pro-
moting placement of the chairman in the chain of command made the depart-
ment appear schizophrenic. Just a few months before, many Pentagon elements
had bitterly opposed a few modest changes to strengthen the chairman. Now
the Pentagon was unanimously urging his designation as supreme military
commander.
Reform supporters reacted negatively to the administration’s proposal.
Armed Forces Journal reported that “proponents of JCS reform contend that the
administration’s changes are ‘cosmetic.’”15
Weinberger declined Nichols’s March  and April  requests for him to
appear before the Investigations Subcommittee on grounds that a defense sec-
retary normally testified only to a full committee. After considerable to-ing and
fro-ing, the secretary agreed that he and General Vessey would meet informally
with Nichols and his subcommittee. General Counsel Taft and Assistant Secre-
tary for Legislative Affairs Russell A. Rourke accompanied Weinberger and
Vessey to the meeting on May . Nichols and eight other subcommittee mem-
bers participated, as did Skelton.16
Weinberger opened with a brief review of events that included the subtle
but pivotal observation: “General Jones, the former chairman and chief critic
of the present JCS reorganization, retired and was replaced by General Vessey.”
Results of the requested review from the “newly constituted” JCS, Weinberger
said, “are reflected, inasmuch as legislative action is required, in the admin-
istration’s proposal.”17
The secretary elaborated: “An anomaly in the present law, which restricts
the JCS chairman from commanding, would be removed, and the chairman
would be placed in the chain of command by law.” As far as the secretary was
13. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Cong. Bill Nichols meet in
the congressman’s office. (Auburn University Archives.)
concerned, the chairman was going to be placed in the succession of command-

ing officers. The administration’s proposals, Weinberger acknowledged, “are
modest proposals, but they represent all that is needed in legislation. . . . The
JCS system is already working well. . . . Good people are what it takes to make
the JCS system work.”
Weinberger said he opposed “the detailed management changes contained
in H.R. ,” which the House had passed in . Concerning a deputy chair-
man, the secretary said, “No need has been demonstrated for such a position.”
He added, “General Vessey has established a duty roster among the chiefs which
provides for a three-month rotation of the position of ‘acting deputy chair-
man.’ That system works and is satisfactory.” Weinberger said he objected to
H.R. ’s Senior Strategy Advisory Board as “not needed because the secre-
tary of defense already has access to advice from people such as those envi-
sioned for the advisory board.”
Weinberger also commented on Meyer’s proposal to replace the chiefs with
a National Military Advisory Council: “Assignment of dual responsibilities to
the chiefs is not a problem if the individuals are carefully chosen. There is no
evidence, with the current group of chiefs, that a conflict exists between their
service and joint roles.” He said current cooperation between the air force
and navy chiefs on bomber support of sea control exemplified the absence of
conflict.
Vessey then explained that the chiefs had decided to “address JCS reform
themselves and not delegate any part of the task to staff or deputies.” From
their discussions, Vessey said, “The JCS agreed that the law should not be
changed with respect to the duties given to the JCS.” He admitted, “The JCS
wrestled with the other issues for several months and arrived at a number of
conclusions, and several new insights.”
The four-star general reported that “the JCS concluded that the most im-
portant role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the same as the secretary of defense’s
civilian staff: to make the secretary of defense as capable as possible in perform-
ing his job.” Vessey discussed three key JCS relationships: with the president
and secretary of defense, among the chiefs, and with unified and specified com-
manders. Regarding the first relationship, “The Joint Chiefs concluded that
through the years their predecessors had tied their own hands with procedures
and other limitations which are not necessary and not required under law. As
a result, many things which should be accomplished by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
have moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This is not a criticism of
OSD. The movement has been because the Joint Chiefs of Staff have shunned
responsibilities which they should shoulder.”
To fix this problem, Vessey said, “The Joint Chiefs intend to nurture their
relationship with the president and the secretary of defense more diligently,
and improve it.” He added that the “chiefs have asked the secretary of defense
to review the things currently accomplished in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense that should be done by the Joint Chiefs and begin a movement to re-
store those responsibilities to the JCS.”
The relationship among the Joint Chiefs, Vessey said, reflected the two as-
pects of a chief ’s responsibility: as a service chief and as a member of a body of
advisers who should rise above service interest in providing advice. The chair-
man revealed that the joint chiefs had “wrestled with the conflicting aspects of
their position in light of the testimony of both General Meyer and General
Taylor last year. They also asked the question: Is there enough time for a chief
to fulfill both roles?”
As to any conflict of interest, the chiefs decided “that the president must
have advice in every instance from the officer most capable of giving advice
based upon his knowledge of the capabilities of his service. That can be no
other person than the chief of that service. And for that reason, it is necessary
that chiefs of service remain members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff advisory body.”
Regarding the time problem, Vessey said, “The chiefs referred back to the
Eisenhower solution.18 That is, the provision of vice chiefs to focus on the day-
to-day operation of the services.” In wartime a chief might focus on his advi-
sory function “and leave service direction to the vice chief. In peacetime, how-
ever, there is time for a chief to perform both jobs.”19
On the third relationship, between the JCS and unified and specified com-
manders, Vessey simply said, “The chiefs agreed that the role of the CINCs
should be increased.”
Vessey recounted the wide range of opinion expressed on Jones’s proposal
to establish a vice chairman. Almost all former chiefs of staff recommended
against a vice chairman. Former chairmen were mixed in their response while
former Joint Staff directors favored the idea. He revealed the stumbling block:
“the relationship between the vice chairman and the other chiefs would be a
difficult one.” Vessey said, “The Joint Chiefs split on the issue.” Since they were
split, he asked them to assume that they had approved the vice chairman posi-
tion and to attempt to write a charter for the job. “No member of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff was able to write a satisfactory charter. Consequently, the JCS
decided to oppose establishing a vice chairman.”
The JCS chairman then explained that the duty roster for acting chairman
“has benefited the chairman by assisting him when he is absent. It has broad-
ened the perspective of the chiefs, deepening their experience and understand-
ing because they act as JCS chairman at the highest levels of government not
only as advisers to the secretary of defense, but to the National Security Coun-
cil and the president.” Vessey concluded, “This makes them better chiefs of staff
and members of the JCS.”
Nichols, responding to Weinberger’s and Vessey’s statements, said: “The sub-
committee has been addressing the issue of JCS reorganization for more than a
year. It is time to put it to bed.” He noted his tremendous respect for Vessey and his
views on the subject, but in his courteous manner, signaled skepticism about the
Pentagon’s proposal by telling Weinberger some of his changes were “cosmetic.”
“I believe the subcommittee should accept the administration proposals,
which reflect the Joint Chiefs of Staff views,” Vessey commented. “If once ac-
cepted, these proposals do not result in improved performance—that is, if they
don’t work—then the Congress should move to a more radical solution such as
the one Mr. Skelton has proposed.”
Skelton seized the opportunity to explain his bill. On Joint Staff provisions,
he said, “At present, the best officers—with justification—do not want to serve
on the Joint Staff because this assignment hurts their career.” He said that this
indicated the relative unimportance of the Joint Staff.
“I am working on it,” Weinberger told the subcommittee. “I have told the
Joint Chiefs that any stigma which derives from working on the Joint Staff must
be removed.”
Vessey noted that the “Joint Chiefs of Staff have addressed this problem
and that it is on the way to being corrected.” The general admitted, “The Navy
did not promote anyone to admiral from the Joint Staff on the last list. But the
other services did promote officers to flag rank. Admiral Watkins is aware of
this problem and has assured me that it will be corrected.”
Weinberger had brought to the meeting a draft letter to Nichols clearly stat-
ing that the JCS had unanimously recommended the Pentagon’s legislative pro-
posal to him. The letter proclaimed that “it is the position of the Department of
Defense, supported by the current Joint Chiefs of Staff, that improvements in the
operation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the extent they are necessary, can and
should come primarily from management initiatives undertaken within the
current statutory framework.”20 General Jones had retired, but General Meyer
was still a joint chief. Many observers wondered what had been done to get the
army chief to back off his forceful proposal and instead support the
administration’s limited ideas.
The meeting and follow-up letter left no doubt that the Pentagon would
resist changes beyond the modest ones in its legislative proposal. During the
session, both Nichols and Hopkins indicated that they were eager to finish this
unfinished business. Weinberger’s and Vessey’s arguments appeared to sig-
nificantly influence the two subcommittee leaders. But the secretary’s and
general’s presentations had not changed Barrett’s thinking. “I believed
Weinberger and Vessey were offering little, if anything,” he recalled. “Accept-
ing their proposal would leave the joint establishment in the hands of service
interests. Nothing would come from enacting the Pentagon-proposed legisla-
tion, and the issue would be put to rest for many more years.”21
Barrett had quickly established a strong relationship with Nichols, who
seemed “to place more and more confidence” in his staffer. Whether the
chairman’s confidence in Barrett would withstand the Alabama congressman’s
admiration for and deference to senior defense officials and officers was un-
known. “Nichols had seldom, if ever, bucked the Pentagon,” Barrett noted. “To
do so would be new and painful for him.”
Weinberger hoped that enactment of the administration’s proposal would
get rid of this pesky issue. The repeated airing of past failures and alleged struc-
tural deficiencies might make it difficult over the long run to maintain congres-
sional and public support for the big Reagan defense buildup. On May  he
reported to the president on his informal meeting with the Investigations Sub-
committee. The secretary judged that Nichols would not challenge the Penta-
gon: “I expect the committee will again approve a bill with minor changes to
the present system, a position with which we are comfortable.”22
A month after meeting with Weinberger and Vessey, the Investigations Sub-
committee began its  reorganization hearings. “We don’t need a lot of hear-
ings,” Nichols told Barrett. “We have a thousand pages of hearings, but we
should inform a new subcommittee of the issues and have the Joint Chiefs over.”
Nichols planned only three hearings with a total of eight witnesses.23
At the first hearing, on the morning of June , the new chairman summa-
rized his subcommittee’s situation: “We have before us three alternatives: the
administration’s proposal, last year’s bill, and a more far-reaching measure ad-
vanced by the Honorable Ike Skelton of Missouri.” Nichols’s next statement re-
corded his skepticism about the administration’s legislation. “In exploring these
alternatives, the members of the subcommittee should recall that the bill we
reported last year was criticized as being too modest to overcome the problems
identified by a majority of witnesses during the many weeks in which we re-
ceived testimony last year. Yet the administration’s proposal before us is much
more timid than our th Congress bill. We shall need to find out why the ad-
ministration believes that the few changes it is recommending will correct the
rather fundamental flaws identified in the hearings last year.”24
But he also did not believe in major surgery: “On the other hand, we will
need to explore with Congressman Skelton and, later, General Maxwell Taylor
why we should dissolve the present organization and start over, as they propose,
without first attempting more moderate remedies within the present framework.”
In line with congressional courtesy, Skelton was the subcommittee’s first
witness. He began by quoting a British military historian, Sir Basil Liddell Hart:
“There are over , years of experience to tell us that the only thing harder
than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.” The
Missouri Democrat reviewed the long history of problems: “Many of the struc-
tural flaws that we will discuss today in the Joint Chiefs of Staff system came
about as a result of those compromises made back in  which had the effect
of preserving autonomy for the individual services.” Skelton devoted the re-
mainder of his testimony to explaining his bill.25
All five joint chiefs testified immediately after Skelton. Two members—
Meyer and Barrow—were retiring at the end of the month. The Senate had
already confirmed their replacements: Gen. John Wickham, USA, and Gen.
P. X. Kelley, USMC. During the confirmation process, when Senator Tower asked
about JCS reform proposals, Kelley responded: “I see very little in these propos-
als which would improve the effectiveness of the JCS. I believe that the system
under which we currently operate is sound and effective.”26
The appointment of Wickham and Kelley meant that all of the joint chiefs
would be Reagan men. This Reagan team, which could expect to serve together
for the next three years, was seen as “heavy with safe players who would ordi-
narily be a low-profile, go-along group.” Long-term acquaintances described
Wickham as a “conservative, efficient, detached officer,” and predicted that he,
in contrast to Meyer, would do “little innovating or cage-rattling.” Colleagues
portrayed Watkins as “a deft political operator” but doubted he would “make
waves for Reagan, partly because he is all but eclipsed by the highly vocal Navy
secretary, John F. Lehman Jr.” Described as “affable,” Gabriel was judged as
“unlikely to poke his head above the cockpit.” Kelley, “extrovertish” and “well-
connected politically,” was viewed as “likely to emerge as the dominant per-

sonality on the chiefs, partly for lack of competition.”27
In front of Nichols’s panel, the five joint chiefs took a low profile. Only Vessey
made an opening statement, repeating what he had said to the subcommittee
in the informal session. The general’s written statement made it clear that the
chiefs would support only the administration’s proposal.28
During members’ questioning, Meyer attempted to explain the dramatic
change in his position. Noting that he had been “an advocate of major sur-
gery,” he now believed “that the most important aspect of this issue . . . is an
agreement on the part of the chiefs . . . that we need to do a better job of provid-
ing military advice to the president and secretary of defense. We all agree with
that [and] since this group of chiefs was willing to agree on a way to come up
with a solution as to how to provide better military advice, I was willing to join
with them in a common approach toward the solution.” Meyer never clarified
exactly what solution he was talking about.29
Near the end of his long statement, Meyer observed, “It may be necessary
in the future to make some additional changes, but I believe . . . that this is the
proper approach at this time.”30
Meyer’s testimony infuriated Barrett. The staffer saw the historic opportu-
nity to reform the JCS slipping away. Just a year earlier, three sitting chiefs had
testified that reforms were needed. Now, two were retired and the other was
recanting. The weakness of the Pentagon’s legislative proposal also irritated
Barrett. It represented exactly what reformers were criticizing the JCS for do-
ing: recommending the lowest common denominator. Vessey and his colleagues
had unanimously recommended the proposal, but stopped short of pushing
any ideas where opinions diverged. And Meyer, the champion of bold reforms,
had gone along with this watered-down set of recommendations.31
As Barrett waited for his chance to ask questions, he pondered whether or
not he should challenge Meyer. “I had a long time to think about it,” the former
colonel recalled, “and I decided that I would.”32
When Nichols gave Barrett the floor, he immediately went after the army
chief. “I would like to return to General Meyer’s testimony of last year because
it certainly conflicts, I believe, with what he said today.” Earlier, Barrett reminded
him, Meyer had argued “that any change we adopt should do a number of
things. One is that it must enhance ‘the role of the chairman and permit him
to take charge of what I consider to be elemental internal discussions.’ He also
said, ‘I don’t believe you can tinker with the issues any longer; tinkering will
not suffice.’” The former colonel then quoted the army chief as criticizing “the
divided loyalty we currently demand of the service chiefs’ that must be ended.”33
The rapid-fire, accusatory tone of Barrett’s statements sounded impolite.
He later recognized that in his questioning of Meyer “Nichols let him get away
with murder.”34
Barrett continued firing: “Now, it seems to me that, with those sorts of

past statements, to come here and indicate four rather modest administration
changes will accomplish any part of his proposed reform is really a change in
one short year.”35
“Is Meyer inconsistent with what he said last year?” the general responded,
speaking of himself in the third person. “The answer is yes. I have tried to ex-
plain why. Not because I don’t believe that at some point in time we have gone
in the direction in which I have indicated, but rather I believe that this group of
chiefs . . . has been able to come to grips with some of these problems.” His next
sentence suggested that part of his willingness to go along centered on a desire
for the JCS to quickly gain a more influential role in the Reagan administra-
tion. “At this time, this provides a solution to the problem when you are trying
to get political support from a group this far into an administration, where you
would have to make any sort of management changes.”36
Lally asked Vessey if he had been able to effect any changes that would
improve the timeliness and quality of military advice. After Vessey responded,
Marine Commandant Barrow jumped in: “Let me add to that question because
I have been there four years and I think we have been dancing around a very
key issue here, sir, and that is that the JCS is very personality sensitive.” Putting
his arm around Vessey and hugging him, the commandant continued, “The
key to all that is this fellow sitting here.” Barrow explained that the new chair-
man provided the kind of leadership to the JCS that makes things happen, causes
advice to be timely, and avoids trying to seek unanimity at all costs. “But this
fellow [Vessey] has not given himself enough credit,” Barrow continued. “He
came in a year ago with clear-cut objectives he wanted to achieve, and one of
them was obviously to enhance the timeliness and the effectiveness of the ad-
vice we give to the secretary of defense and the president. In my judgment, that
has been done.”37
Barrow stated publicly what the Pentagon had been telling Capitol Hill in
private: “Vessey knew how to make the current system work effectively.” The
Pentagon placed enormous trust in the new chairman to overcome past prob-
lems. Barrett sensed that Vessey’s approach and style appealed to Investiga-
tions Subcommittee members, who seemed prepared to heed Vessey’s advice
as well.38
Noting that the JCS had effectively defended their views, the Armed Forces
Journal reported, “A recent congressional appearance by all of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff may well defuse the sensitive issue of JCS reorganization, some fifteen
months after two prominent JCS members ignited it.”39
On June , Gen. Maxwell Taylor’s testimony put the subcommittee back
in a reform mood. He said that since his appearance before the subcommittee
in , his views had “changed little, if at all, and are quite similar to those
expressed by Congressman Skelton’s bill, H.R. , presently before you.”40
The high-pitched voice of the eighty-two-year-old former JCS chairman sig-

naled his failing health. The general’s mind remained sharp, however, and his
testimony was persuasive.41
Taylor criticized the administration’s bill, H.R. . Its provision that
would replace the corporate JCS in the chain of command with the chairman,
which Weinberger called “an important defense initiative,” Taylor termed “little
more than a legislative legitimation” of an existing DoD directive. “In fact, the
language of H.R.  authorizes the chairman to do little more than forward
orders from the president and the secretary to field commanders, which, to me,
is pretty much a clerical function. If the intention is to elevate the chairman
notably above his colleagues, that result is not achieved.”42
Taylor called H.R. ’s proposed Joint Staff changes “reasonable but also
of little importance.” The general noted that he had a quite different impres-
sion of the attitudes of Weinberger and Vessey toward the need for JCS reform.
“The secretary sees little, if any, need for change. . . . The chairman . . . is in-
clined to concede the existence of past faults in the system but believes that he
and his colleagues have agreed on a series of remedial actions, which, if al-
lowed to run their course, will correct the defects.” Of these, Taylor said, “They
make an impressive list, but unfortunately offer no remedy to old weaknesses,
such as the following: A. The excessive workload of the dual-hatted chiefs; B.
Their demonstrated inability to produce timely advice on matters much be-
yond next year’s budget; C. The inevitable service bias they bring to the council
table; and D. The inherent defects of committee action—slowness, ponderosity,
indecisiveness, and compromise.”
The next part of Taylor’s testimony had a major impact on the subcom-
mittee’s thinking. “It is clear that the secretary is prepared to stand pat on the
Joint Chiefs of Staff system as it is and would strongly resist any major changes
such as those contained in Congressman Skelton’s bill,” the general observed.
“Even if Congress were to pass this latter bill, the cold reception it would re-
ceive in many parts of the Pentagon would nullify many of its basic purposes.
For any such drastic change in military organization to succeed, it must have
the support, cooperation and goodwill of the principal officials, legislative and
executive, responsible for it.” If Skelton’s reforms were unworkable, “What
should be done about H.R.  and its pallid content?”
Taylor answered his own question: “It would be unfortunate, in my opin-
ion, to pass it in its present form, if only because doing so would imply agree-
ment with the secretary that all is well with the Joint Chiefs of Staff system. I
sincerely hope that this is not the view of this committee.”
Instead, the general proposed “a better course,” achievable with certain
amendments to give it more substance. “Since a major purpose of the bill is to
increase the authority of the chairman, let’s give him something of real signifi-
cance,” he said.
Taylor recommended three amendments. Concerning the chain of com-

mand, his proposed language read: “The channel of command runs from the
president to the secretary and through the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, to
the combatant commands. Orders to these commands from the president or
the secretary pass through the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is autho-
rized to communicate as needed with the combatant commands to verify the
execution of such orders and to assure the maintenance of the state of readi-
ness required by the strategic tasks assigned the commands.” He explained that
“such a change would eliminate the impression that the chairman is merely a
communications robot mechanically conveying military orders from the presi-
dent or the secretary.”
As his second amendment, Taylor proposed adding a new paragraph to
the bill: “The chairman, JCS, in presiding over the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be
responsible for the timely conduct of business within that body, with author-
ity to settle issues on which the members are divided. Any member may ap-
peal the chairman’s decision to the secretary of defense.” In support, Taylor
cited the Kennedy administration’s successful use of executive chairmen to
expedite the work of large standing committees.
The former chairman’s last amendment would add another new paragraph
making the chairman a regular National Security Council (NSC) member. These
three changes, he said, “In combination, . . . should clarify and strengthen the
position of the chairman and thereby facilitate the job of General Vessey in
carrying out his in-house reform program.”
Taylor offered “a final word about the Skelton bill, H.R. . Although
unhappily its time may not have come, it contains many features worthy of
continuing study and further development.”
Nichols’s subcommittee called its last witness, Admiral Tom Moorer, on
the morning of June . After delivering a laudatory summary of the career of
the former JCS chairman, Nichols said, “I might add on a personal note that I
am extremely proud to report that Admiral Moorer is a constituent of mine,
coming from my congressional district. He has an illustrious family.”
In his response, Moorer built upon his connection to the subcommittee
chairman, adding: “I would also like to say that I am very pleased to have a
gentleman like you as chairman of this committee conducting this investiga-
tion because there are so many people that recommend so many changes in
the military that have never heard gunfire. On the other hand, you are a man
that has been there. Consequently, I know that you will understand the overall
problems and structures of a command establishment.”
Turning to the substance of the hearing, Moorer challenged the recom-
mendations of “some twenty studies, I believe, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since
it was set up by the National Security Act of .” He said that these studies
recommended that “we should have an organization that will give a unified
view” to the president and defense secretary. This statement inaccurately char-
acterized previous studies’ recommendations on military advice, but fit the point
that Moorer wanted to make. He countered this alleged recommendation by
asserting: “it is important, in my judgment, that the president of the United
States receive not just a single recommendation but rather options as to what
would be the best course of action from which we would choose.”
Moorer next challenged the view that the chiefs should be removed from
the JCS because they did not have time to perform dual assignments. He ar-
gued that if you “cannot find enough time to perform your duties as chief of a
service and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are not qualified for
the job.”
Responding to General Jones’s statement that the chairman lacked ad-
equate authority, the admiral countered: “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, with respect to those in uniform, has all the authority he is willing to
take.” Apparently in reference to proposals to ensure appropriate promotion
rates for personnel in joint-duty positions, the admiral warned, “It is very un-
wise to penetrate, you might say, the service promotion system.”
Concerning the pending legislation, Moorer said, “Now, I have studied Gen-
eral Vessey’s statement [and] I support in toto everything that he has said. I
think that General Vessey is a very mature officer with great experience and
great intelligence and balance, and I would think that his statement provides
the best guidance I have seen for reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There-
fore, I fully support H.R. .”
Of H.R. , Moorer warned, “I must say with great respect to Congress-
man Skelton, I think that this proposal is filled with booby traps.”
Although Nichols never revealed how he felt about his constituent’s testi-
mony, Barrett sensed that the admiral’s arguments were backfiring. “I came to
welcome Moorer’s testimony year after year,” Barrett recalled. “His poorly,
though strongly, argued positions against any change probably resolved or con-
verted many members to favor reform. The alternative would be to associate
themselves with the untenable positions of an intellectually shallow, superfi-
cial, self-serving, and curmudgeonly witness.”43
On July , the Investigations Subcommittee decided to report a clean bill in

lieu of an amended H.R. . Nichols and Barrett used the bill the House had
passed in  as the basis for new legislation. They added each provision of
the administration’s bill, using the administration’s rather than General Taylor’s
language on placing the chairman in the chain of command. Where the 
bill and administration proposal addressed the same Joint Staff sections of law,
the latter was substituted for the former.
The draft bill included three other new provisions. Taylor’s idea to make
the chairman a statutory member of the NSC was one addition. Nichols and
Barrett added a modified version of another Taylor idea, which would em-
power the JCS chairman to “determine when issues under consideration shall
be decided.” Taylor had wanted the chairman to decide issues when mem-
bers were divided. Although not as forceful as the Taylor proposal, the adopted
wording was designed to help the chairman improve the timeliness of mili-
tary advice.
The third addition resulted in part from Vessey’s testimony and in part from
Jones’s testimony the year before. Of the unified and specified commanders,
Vessey said, “The secretary of defense has asked that I, as the chairman, be-
come their spokesman on operational requirements.”44 Jones had recommended
that the chairman oversee the unified and specified commanders. Nichols and
Barrett included both ideas in a single provision and used the stronger “super-
vise” in lieu of Jones’s “oversee.”
Nichols and Barrett decided to drop three provisions from the  House
bill. In line with Weinberger’s argument, language that would give a service
chief the right to express his disagreement with a position by the chairman
was removed. They deleted as well the provision establishing a Senior Strategy
Advisory Board. The last provision dropped created a deputy chairman.
“I just couldn’t believe that General Vessey didn’t want a deputy,” Barrett
recalled. “I felt he was saying publicly something he really didn’t believe. I didn’t
see how any JCS chairman, knowing what I knew, would not secretly want a
deputy chairman. And I kept telling Mr. Nichols this. And he said, ‘Well, he
says he doesn’t.’ So, I persuaded Mr. Nichols to get Vessey’s personal views, one
on one. The markup was approaching, and I couldn’t get them together. I fi-
nally got a telephone call arranged. Mr. Nichols . . . talked to General Vessey
and told him, ‘We’re going to mark the bill without a deputy chairman.’ Mr.
Nichols would have marked it either way. Vessey told him privately what he
said in public. He was against the deputy chairman. After that call, I gave up
because I had no other recourse.”45
All nine subcommittee members in attendance voted in favor of the new
bill. Nichols, acting for himself and nine cosponsors, introduced the bill, to be
called the “Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act of ,” in the House on
the following day. Surprisingly, three subcommittee Democrats who had co-
sponsored White’s  bill—Daniel, Aspin, and Nicholas Mavroules—did not
participate in a single  hearing on JCS reform. Aspin and Mavroules also
did not cosponsor the  bill.
Following its designation as H.R. , the bill was referred to the Investiga-
tions Subcommittee on August . On that same day, the subcommittee referred
it to DoD for its views. General Counsel Taft did not respond for the department
until September . His letter stated that the department supported only those
portions of the bill that were in the administration’s proposal and opposed or
found other provisions unnecessary.46
Undeterred by Pentagon opposition, Nichols asked the full committee to

consider the bill the same day DoD responded. The Alabama Democrat briefly
explained the bill to the committee. Skelton made a supporting statement. A
few questions were asked. Then the full committee chairman, Mel Price of Illi-
nois, said, “The question is on the approval of the bill. Those in favor vote aye.”
After the voice vote, Price announced, “The ayes have it. The bill is approved.”
The session lasted only ten minutes.47
The Armed Forces Journal judged H.R.  to be a stronger JCS reform bill
“than either the administration’s proposal or a more modest JCS reorganization
bill, the White bill, which the House overwhelming passed last year.” The Jour-
nal may have rushed to judgment; H.R.  made three big changes to the
White bill. It would place the chairman in the chain of command, make the
chairman an NSC member, and forego establishment of a deputy chairman. As
General Taylor observed, the first change was inconsequential. Making the de-
fense secretary and JCS chairman equal NSC members would adversely affect
their superior-subordinate relationship. Deletion of the deputy chairman was
obviously a step backward for JCS reform.48
On September , the HASC reported H.R.  to the House. On Octo-
ber , the House considered H.R. . No amendments were offered, and, as
it had the previous year, the House suspended the rules and passed the bill by
voice vote.49
Four days after the House approved H.R. , Weinberger reported the
result to Reagan: “By a unanimous voice vote, the House on Monday passed
and sent to the Senate a bill promoted by the Armed Services Committee that
would make limited structural changes to improve the functioning of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. In addition to expanding the authority of the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs and making him a formal member of the National Security Coun-
cil, the bill provided for an expanded Joint Staff to assist him in carrying out his
responsibilities. As passed by the House, the department supports the bill, which
is not as far-reaching as had been originally proposed. Hearings are now un-
derway in the Senate on this issue, but the final outcome is uncertain.”50
Weinberger’s statement that “the department supports the bill” contra-
dicted Taft’s letter and DoD’s overt opposition, which continued through .
Maybe the defense secretary did not want to admit to the president that the
House had completely disregarded the Pentagon’s opposition to H.R. .
Maybe the secretary did not feel as strongly as others in the Pentagon about
JCS reform. Maybe the secretary would accept the modest provisions of the
House bill as the price of getting past congressional fascination with reform of
the joint system. In any case, the department’s position on H.R.  was not
what Weinberger told Reagan.
For the second time in as many years, the House had passed a bill to reor-
ganize the JCS. In , the administration finally took a position on this con-
troversial issue and DoD presented its own legislative proposal. Although the
Pentagon poorly formulated and presented its limited ideas, Vessey consider-
ably influenced the outcome of the second bill, particularly the decision to drop
the deputy chairman provision. The House, however, ignored Pentagon oppo-
sition to enactment of any provision not included in its own proposal.
Under Bill Nichols’s leadership, slightly more subcommittee members took
an interest in JCS reform, but most considered it “to be one of the least under-
stood, least interesting, most boring, and politically unrewarding issues the
subcommittee could address.” The vast majority of the HASC also continued
to see this as Dick White’s issue.51
Even Nichols did not yet see JCS reorganization as his issue. That would
soon change. Six days after the House passed H.R. , a military tragedy in
the Middle East dramatically altered how Nichols felt about this legislation.
Misfire in the Senate 113
CHAPTER 6
Misfire in the Senate
No enemy is worse than bad advice.
—Sophocles, Electra
J ohn Tower wanted to be secretary of defense long before Pres. George H. W.

Bush nominated him for that position in January, . Eight years earlier,
he had angled for the job in Reagan’s first cabinet. Tower made the short list of
contenders, and the press briefly reported him as the leading candidate.1 In the
end, however, Reagan’s old friend Cap Weinberger landed the job, and Tower
assumed duties as the Senate Armed Services Committee’s first Republican
chairman in twenty-six years. Reagan reportedly passed over Tower, at least in
part, because his strong leadership would be needed in the Senate to enact the
new president’s defense buildup.2
As the administration entered its third year, Tower remained “fixated on
becoming secretary of defense.”3 By then he believed it was unlikely that Reagan
would select him to lead the Pentagon as long as he was serving as the SASC
chairman or ranking minority member. Senate defense votes were getting
tougher, and the Pentagon was relying increasingly on Tower. Weinberger’s
report to Reagan on the defense authorization bill in  emphasized the
Texan’s important role: “John Tower has done a superb job in managing the
bill on the floor. His leadership and legislative expertise have once again been
invaluable.”4 Tower concluded that retiring from the Senate would enhance
his chances of becoming secretary of defense.5
Tower thought chances were excellent that Weinberger would step aside if
Reagan were elected to a second term. Four years as DoD’s head was an ex-
hausting grind. Few had served longer. Tower also based his speculation on the
secretary’s low standing on Capitol Hill. Weinberger’s unyielding, combative
style had alienated many members. Tower judged the secretary’s leadership of
the Pentagon to be poor. He also knew that Weinberger’s performance displeased

White House aides who saw him as a political liability.6 With these factors point-
ing toward an opening in the top Pentagon post, Tower wanted to position him-
self to be selected.
The grinding congressional routine and Tower’s loss of interest in many
Senate activities reinforced his thoughts of retirement. Foreign policy and de-
fense issues held his attention, but Tower was losing interest in domestic affairs
and the mundane demands of constituent services. For whatever reasons, he
decided in July, , not to stand for reelection in . He waited until late
summer to announce his decision.
In June, , the Texas Republican decided to launch a major committee
inquiry into defense reorganization. It was a step calculated to strengthen his
credentials for secretary and might also expose what Tower saw as Weinberger’s
poor performance. Tower was determined to use this inquiry to show that he
knew something about DoD organization and management. Ironically, his lack
of knowledge on these subjects led to a misdirected, ill-fated inquiry.
Inspiration for the inquiry came from Lt. Gen. Victor H. “Brute” Krulak, a
famous and highly regarded retired marine and father of the thirty-first Ma-
rine Corps commandant. Krulak resided in San Diego. His former mayor, Pete
Wilson, a Republican SASC member, arranged a meeting with Tower. The gen-
eral, two senators, and Jim McGovern, the SASC staff director, met briefly on
the morning of May . There was a longer session the next evening without
Wilson.7
Both meetings focused on Krulak’s recent book, Organization for National
Security, which rebutted the proposals of Generals Jones and Meyer. The book
analyzed the military’s deficiencies and offered forceful remedies. Like retired
general J. D. Hittle, Krulak had worked on the National Security Act of .
He also participated in marine opposition to the , , and  amend-
ments. His book drew on these experiences as well as his service in World War
II, Korea, and Vietnam during a distinguished thirty-four-year career.8
During the meetings, Krulak repeatedly emphasized one overarching
theme: the need to move “away from centralization.”9 Of this evil, Krulak wrote:
“There has grown up, in the complex called the Office of the Secretary of De-
fense, a self-nourishing, self-perpetuating bureaucracy which impedes and
diffuses the essential warmaking functions . . . to a degree that gravely dimin-
ishes the ability of the United States to provide for its security.”10
Krulak argued that the World War II structure had been effective. In his
view, postwar modifications caused the “procession of disastrous performances”
by the military. He criticized the expanded role of the defense secretary, cre-
ation of the position of JCS chairman, and the large, meddling OSD staff. Krulak
called this top level of the Pentagon “a sort of institutional bloat that saps our
soldierly strength.”11
Krulak’s book offered a simple fix: return to the World War II system with
the service chiefs working directly with the president. He reminded readers that
“The entire OSD complex is a creation that did not exist when we won the great-
est war in history.” Krulak recommended removing the secretary of defense
from the chain of command so he could not interfere in the vital link between
the president and chiefs. He wanted the secretary’s staff to be drastically re-
duced in size and argued for elimination of the position of JCS chairman. “The
overriding reality is, while the concept of a JCS has proven its case, the concept
of a JCS chairman has not. It is time to acknowledge that reality and to elimi-
nate the office.”12
Krulak’s arguments reinforced popular themes on Capitol Hill, where
knowledge of the Pentagon’s vast bureaucracy was limited and often superficial.
Only when a committee or subcommittee undertook a specific investigation—
such as the SASC’s  examination of the failed Iranian rescue mission—
did members gain an improved understanding, and then only for a slice of the
structure.
Many of Krulak’s arguments appealed to Tower.13 Like many other pro-
defense members, Tower agreed with the general’s assessment that the
overinvolvement of civilians in military matters caused America’s defeat in
Vietnam. “, Americans died in the Vietnam War,” Krulak wrote. “A fair
case can be made that the number of dead would have been fewer and the
results more favorable had we fought the war the way our military leadership
wanted.”14
The four services, especially the navy and Marine Corps, sympathized with
Krulak’s arguments and possibly with some of his recommendations. Tower
judged that his strong supporters—the uniformed services, especially the
navy—would benefit from enactment of Krulak’s ideas. By leading a crusade
for this community, Tower could reasonably expect that the services’ many sup-
porters would lend their considerable weight, if and when the time came, to
his candidacy for the Pentagon’s top post.
Tower asked the SASC’s top lawyer, Alan R. Yuspeh, for his thoughts on a reor-
ganization inquiry. Law codified the Pentagon’s structure. Tower wanted to
know the magnitude of enacting statutory changes.
Yuspeh earned a business degree from Harvard and a law degree from
Georgetown. Because I also had a Harvard M.B.A. and ten years of Pentagon
experience, Yuspeh asked me to assist him in responding to the chairman. We
recommended against a legislative effort to reorganize DoD for three reasons.
First, it would be controversial. Reorganization battles had been among the
Pentagon’s most brutal and emotional fights. Even Marshall, Truman, and
Eisenhower had been unable to reason with reform opponents. Second, the
committee members and staff lacked the required expertise. Among staffers,
only I had served in the Pentagon for a significant period and with duties that
provided insights on reform issues. Finally, given its already full agenda, the
committee did not have time for a project of this magnitude.
“I had some reservation about any committee staff of our size undertaking
a difficult, time-consuming, consulting study,” recalled Yuspeh, who had worked
for McKinsey and Company, a management consulting firm. “If you were to
approach defense reorganization as a McKinsey study, you probably would have
had a four- or five-person team working on it for a year. So, you’d have five man
years’ worth of effort by people who are specifically trained in organizational
analysis.” Yet normal duties fully occupied the SASC’s twenty-one-person pro-
fessional staff. “The staff was struggling just to get the defense authorization
bill done.”15
Yuspeh and I were missing one key piece of information: We were unaware
that Tower envisioned reorganization along the lines of Krulak’s book, propos-
als that contradicted General Jones’s recommendations and provisions of the
House-passed bill.
Yuspeh forwarded our views to Tower in writing. We were not given the
opportunity to speak with the chairman. Tower rejected our recommendation
and decided to launch a major study.
At a press conference on June , , Tower announced that “the Sen-
ate Armed Services Committee will begin a comprehensive series of hearings
on the structure, organization, and decision making procedures of the Depart-
ment of Defense.” I helped draft the senator’s three-page statement.16
I wanted Tower to announce that the committee would examine all major
DoD components. This plan would differ from the House’s approach of examin-
ing only the JCS. A Harvard Business School course on organizational design
had taught me about the interdependence of an organization’s components.
One of my favorite textbooks argued that “an organization is not a mechanical
system in which one part can be changed without a concomitant effect on the
other parts. Rather, an organizational system shares with biological systems
the property of an intense interdependence of parts such that a change in one
part has an impact on others.”17 General Jones raised similar arguments dur-
ing his appearance before the committee in December, .18
Tower agreed with my arguments for a comprehensive approach.19 The
chairman’s press statement identified six major areas for inquiry: OSD, the Or-
ganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (OJCS), unified commands, budget pro-
cess, acquisition process, and interagency relations.
To lessen the blow on the administration, Tower said, “These proposed hear-
ings . . . are not intended as a criticism of any presidential administration. The
Department of Defense has grown under both Republican and Democratic ad-
ministrations, and the complex bureaucracy at DoD is the result of a continu-
ous, gradual organizational evolution.”20
14. Defense Department Organizational Chart, July, 1984.
Tower planned that the full committee, not a subcommittee, would con-
duct the inquiry. Because the SASC did not have an investigations subcom-
mittee, the full committee normally handled special inquiries. Full-committee
hearings received more extensive media coverage than subcommittee sessions.
With many nationally known members, the hearings would generate head-
lines and interest.
After Tower’s announcement, I volunteered to organize the inquiry, and
Tower and McGovern assigned me lead responsibility.21 My background fit the
task. After ten years in the Pentagon, I understood its structure and operations
and had seen its problems up close. Academically, West Point had prepared me
on military leadership and culture, and Harvard had provided me with a solid
background on organization and management.
The Democratic staff that worked for the ranking minority member, Sen.
Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson of Washington, selected Bruce D. Porter to be my
counterpart. Prior to joining the committee in early , Porter worked for
Radio Free Europe in West Germany. He had earned both master’s and doctoral
degrees at Harvard following his graduation from Brigham Young University.
Given freedom to develop the inquiry, I settled on an approach with three

key features. First, to the initial six areas to be studied, I added two more: mili-
tary departments and congressional review and oversight. Some staff colleagues
warned me I was “being too ambitious.” Examining all major DoD components
and processes simultaneously would be complicated and demanding, a “high-
risk approach,” they said. I understood their concerns, but a comprehensive
approach offered the best chance for effective and lasting reform.
To augment the members’ meager knowledge of defense organization, I
determined that the staff should prepare a comprehensive report, synthesiz-
ing forty years of conflicting studies and testimony on military organization
principles. This study proved to be an enormous burden, but it would play a
pivotal role.
The third feature would involve the entire committee staff and military leg-
islative assistants on SASC members’ personal staffs in preparing the staff study.
Because we had neither the expertise nor the time, the burdens of this project
needed to be widely spread. Large-scale involvement also provided a better-
informed staff when the inevitable controversy began to swirl around the
committee members. Months later this widespread participation revealed an
unforeseen advantage: it made the effort harder to kill.
Seven working groups would prepare the hearings and write chapters of
the study. For each group, I recruited a majority staff coordinator and a minority
staff counterpart. I headed the study group on OSD. Rick Finn would lead the
OJCS team. Patrick A. Tucker, one of the majority counsels and a manpower
specialist, assumed lead responsibility for studying the military departments.
James C. Smith III, the longest-serving committee staffer, headed the team to
examine the unified and specified commands. Michael B. Donley, the committee’s
budget and readiness guru, coordinated the work on the department’s Plan-
ning, Programming, and Budgeting System. Yuspeh, the general counsel, headed
two groups: National Security Council interagency system and procurement
process. Each team had between three and eight members. Fifteen committee
staffers and fourteen personal staffers participated, though none did so on a
full-time basis.
A fourth feature of the inquiry originated with a colleague. As the staff
began work, we prematurely focused on solutions. We were drawn in that di-
rection by the debate on solutions under way in think tanks and universities.
James G. Roche, the minority staff director, pointed out our error. “You need to
focus on problems and their causes.” Roche, who had a doctorate from the
Harvard Business School, argued, “Only when you have precisely identified what
needs to be fixed will you be able to formulate effective solutions.”
Roche was right. My staff colleagues and I stopped thinking about solu-
tions. We focused on problems and their causes. I revised the outline for each
chapter of the staff study to emphasize this now-preeminent dimension.
In time, we came to understand why so many reorganization efforts fail.

Nearly all reorganizers assume that they know what the problems are and im-
mediately pursue solutions. They devote  percent of the effort to determining
what is wrong and  percent to developing solutions. Then, when changes do
not get to the heart of the problem, the organization experiences turbulence
resulting in little benefit. Roche helped save us from that fate.
Late in the August recess, I briefed McGovern on my approach for the inquiry,
proposed hearings, and preliminary results of our analysis. By then,
Weinberger had already testified at the committee’s first hearing. Our early
staff work supported the views of Generals Jones and Meyer on joint system
reform.
As I began to lay out the analytical results, McGovern interrupted me.
“You’re dead wrong,” he declared. “Senator Tower was briefed by General Brute
Krulak on his book on defense organization. Krulak recommends a return to
the command system that worked so well during World War II. Tower is con-
vinced that Krulak is right.”
I was stunned. “I’ve never heard of Krulak’s book,” I replied. “But, from
your description, his reforms are the last thing DoD needs. It’s been clear since
Pearl Harbor that the military needs a structure that will effectively integrate
the capabilities of the four services.”
“Bullshit,” McGovern fired back. “This centralization crap has hamstrung
the services. It’s been the source of all operational problems. Tower’s heard all
the arguments, and he’s made up his mind.”
After a heated argument, I rose to depart. As I neared the door, McGovern
firmly ordered, “And, Jim, I don’t want you raising your views with Tower.”
An Annapolis graduate, McGovern was a navy man even more so than
Tower. McGovern was closely associated with John Lehman, the ambitious and
ruthless navy secretary. Admiral William J. Crowe Jr. characterized Lehman as
“the ultimate bureaucrat. He was unscrupulous. Didn’t hesitate to lie.”22
After his promotion from general counsel to staff director in late ,
McGovern began isolating Tower from the Republican staff. The previous direc-
tor, Rhett Dawson, had worked hard to ensure that the chairman heard all
relevant ideas. McGovern took the opposite tack. He filtered all advice and in-
formation going to Tower and monitored all staff interaction with the chair-
man. Suddenly, Tower was not getting the full range of opinion.
At first, the Republican staff thought the new director was merely falling
into the familiar trap of micromanagement. The staff designated Jim Smith and
me to talk to McGovern about the problem. McGovern assured us that he had
no intention of limiting the staff’s access or the flow of information to Tower.
He blamed his “newness to the duties of staff director.” We accepted his expla-
nation, but McGovern was misleading us.
One day when Tower had the majority staff assembled, the chairman told
us, “Jim McGovern will be the single source through which all information from
the committee will flow to me.” Before the staff realized what was happening,
McGovern had succeeded not only in isolating and controlling the chairman,
but doing so with his blessing.
Following that meeting, the schism between McGovern and most Republi-
can staffers widened. Every issue became a test of wills and bureaucratic skills.
This split in the staff provided important support to me when McGovern and I
later tangled on reorganization.
For nearly three years, Tower and I had worked closely on foreign policy
issues. His fascination with international relations led Tower to covet the job of
secretary of state. Believing that he could not achieve that position, he set his
sights on secretary of defense, but his emphasis on foreign policy issues contin-
ued. After Tower and I had several foreign policy successes, he began calling
me the SASC’s foreign minister. During this period, I spent more time with the
chairman than any other staffer except Rhett Dawson. I had great rapport with
Tower, and I knew that he relied on my views. Although McGovern had told
me not to talk to Tower about reorganization, I was determined to tell the chair-
man that he was heading in the wrong direction.
During September and October, I raised the issue with Tower five or six
times. Each time he put me off by saying, “I’d like to hear your views, but at
some other time.” I began to sense that McGovern had succeeded in turning
Tower against me on this issue. Eventually, I asked Tower to read several short
analyses of key Pentagon problems I had written.
“McGovern said all papers should go through him,” the chairman replied
almost apologetically. That was the kiss of death. McGovern would never for-
ward my papers to Tower. The chairman did not want to hear or read my views.
As courtesy and protocol dictated, Tower invited Weinberger to be the lead wit-
ness for the  reorganization hearings. In an opening statement I had drafted
for the July  hearing, Tower discussed the ambitious list of issues to be ad-
dressed. He then said, “The reason these hearings will sweep so broadly is that
each of these subjects is, in my view, an inseparable part of an integrated whole.
It makes no sense, for example, to consider how budgets are formulated with-
out considering the extent to which the Joint Chiefs of Staff and unified com-
manders should be consulted on critical issues of resource allocation.” The
committee’s intention was “to look comprehensively at the DoD structure and
to assess whether or not that structure facilitates the formulation of a sound
national security policy and the execution of that policy.”23
In a letter written on July , Cong. Newt Gingrich warned Weinberger:
“Your staff will be tempted to come to those hearings strategically on the defen-
sive. They will want to counter by explaining how successful you have been at
15. Senator John Tower and Jim Locher meet in the senator’s office in the
Russell Senate Office Building in September, 1984. (U.S. Senate photo.)
cleaning up the Pentagon and by explaining your successes with specific ex-
amples. In doing that, they will be trying to communicate a message which,
frankly, will not sell. If you enter those hearings defensively, you will have lost
the battle before the first shot is fired. And you will be portrayed as the de-
fender of big defense contractors, military bureaucrats and government
waste.”24
The Georgia Republican then told Weinberger: “This is a crucial opportu-

nity for you to recast the entire debate. Your decision may be the most impor-
tant political and public-relations decision you make in . Will you come in
focusing on past successes—putting you permanently on the defensive—or sug-
gesting aggressive and fundamental reform which will put you permanently
on the offensive?”
Weinberger did exactly what Gingrich had argued against. The first half
of the secretary’s statement explained improvements made and problems fixed.
The second half described needed congressional reforms. The Washington Post
reported that Weinberger claimed “he has run the Pentagon efficiently and that
Congress is to blame for any remaining management problems.”25
Weinberger’s handling of questions on spare parts procurement epitomized
his testimony. Two weeks before his appearance, a draft report by the Pentagon’s
inspector general was leaked to the press. A Washington Post article on this re-
port published July  began: “The Defense Department is paying millions of
dollars too much for aircraft engine spare parts and is giving far too little atten-
tion to cost increases.” The news story cited examples: “In , the Air Force
paid $. for a bolt that cost  cents in . The price of one section of a
Rolls-Royce ring assembly increased from $. to $. in the same period.
In many cases, the report . . . found that ‘little effort was being made to limit
exorbitant cost growth,’ while the Pentagon ‘provided contractors with a “blank
check” and no incentives to cut costs.’” The Post noted that “the draft report
offers the most authoritative evidence so far of the widespread scope of the
problem.”26
Editorial cartoonists had a field day. In the week before Weinberger testified,
one Herblock cartoon in the Washington Post showed him as a Pentagon watch-
man named “Rip van Weinberger”; another, as a spare part with a hole through
the head in a room of “overpriced spare parts.”27
Coverage of the inspector general’s report sparked public and media inter-
est in the Pentagon’s management of its vast procurement activities. As media
reporting over the next two years provided more evidence of waste, spare parts
procurement became an explosive political issue. It also persuaded members to
be more open to considering reorganization.
At the July  hearing, members questioned Weinberger about the leaked
report. Senator William S. Cohen of Maine cited specific findings: “For example,
the inspector general’s report noted of , parts that they surveyed,  per-
cent rose  percent or more in price between  and . More than 
percent doubled in price during that period. Twenty-seven percent showed price
increases of  percent or more in the same period the Consumer Price Index
rose only  percent.” Cohen asserted that such price increases “are beyond
the realm of explanation.”28
“We have changed our way of doing business,” Weinberger replied. “We
16. This Herblock cartoon appeared in the Washington Post on July 20,
1983. (Herblock Throught the Looking Glass, W.W. Norton, 1984.)
did uncover all of these things that you mentioned and we discovered them
before anyone else and took action to correct them immediately.”29
Gingrich was right. Weinberger’s message did not sell. Members did not
know what the problems were or how to fix them, but they did not accept the
secretary’s arguments. In his first reorganization hearing, the secretary had
succeeded in putting himself permanently on the defensive. Weinberger, how-
ever, did not sense his strategic blunder. Four days after the hearing, he wrote
to Gingrich, “Your comments regarding the approach that the department
should take to these hearings are well taken. I hope you felt the hearing results
were useful.”30
Despite his misreading of the outcome, Weinberger did understand that
legislation would develop slowly. He reported to Reagan: “In coming weeks the
committee will pursue this matter, but I expect no substantive changes in the
immediate future.”31
In projecting a slow pace, Weinberger may have been influenced by the poor
understanding of issues displayed by senators. After reporting Nunn’s tough
questioning, the Armed Forces Journal stated that most “questions by committee
members were vapid and they poorly addressed the serious issues involved and
the challenges put forth in Weinberger’s statement. The most pertinent and prob-
ing questions, other than Nunn’s, were not even voiced in the hearing, but in
written questions which Tower gave Weinberger to answer later.”32 Having writ-
ten these questions, I was pleased by the praise. But there was little else to be
pleased about. The hearing’s inconclusiveness and senators’ lack of a frame of
reference convinced me that the staff report, when completed, would be crucial.
Two months passed before the SASC again examined reorganization. Two im-
portant events occurred in the interim. On August , in the chamber of the
Texas House of Representatives in Austin, Tower informed the people of Texas
that he would not seek reelection. Asked about his interest in becoming defense
secretary in a second Reagan administration, Tower gave the only politically
correct answer: “I have been offered no such appointment, nor do I expect one.”33
Tower’s retirement in sixteen months would leave a gaping hole in the
administration’s defense effort on Capitol Hill. Pat Towell, Congressional
Quarterly’s defense expert, expressed the consensus view: “By any standard,
Sen. John G. Tower’s (R-TX) decision to retire from the Senate at the end of
 will deprive the defense establishment of one of its most eloquent advo-
cates, a loss it can ill afford, given the evidently limited clout on Capitol Hill of
most senior Reagan defense officials.”34
On September , “Scoop” Jackson, a revered SASC member and its ranking
Democrat, died. His death robbed the Senate of one of its giants. The Washington
senator had served in Congress for forty-three years. Although he briefly attended
the Weinberger hearing, the reorganization inquiry had not captured his atten-
tion. The new ranking minority member, Sam Nunn, wasted no time giving it
priority. Earlier, at the Weinberger hearing, he announced, “I think this set of
hearings may well in the long run be more important than any others we have.”35
Many felt that Nunn would inherit Jackson’s sobriquet “Mr. Defense” as
the leading congressional expert on military matters.36 One source reported:
“Republicans as well as Democrats turn to Nunn as an authority on military
manpower, strategy, tactics, and weapons.”37 Senator Cohen noted that Nunn
“knows how to work across the political aisle.”38
The forty-five-year-old Nunn had eleven years of congressional service,
barely a fourth as long as Jackson. What had catapulted the relatively young
and junior Nunn to such prominence as a defense expert? “Knowledge made
Nunn a power in the Senate in a remarkably short time,” answered one source.39
The Georgia senator was described as having “a deeply personal compulsion to
learn” and “an unquenchable fascination with the minutiae of defense issues.”40
In short, Nunn worked hard to be better informed than anyone else.
Having spent two and one-half years working for Nunn, I knew the inten-
sity with which he studied issues. He would examine problems from every per-
spective, gather the best data, perform the most rigorous analysis, and hear
from the best experts before making up his mind. Cohen said his “great strength
is in holding back and waiting. He watches the dynamics in the committee play
out, gives small pushes in various directions and then comes in with an intelli-
gent proposal.”41
Nunn demanded a great deal from himself intellectually and expected al-
most as much from his staff. I had prepared three three-inch notebooks filled
with point papers and background material on each country and meeting for
an eleven-day trip to East Asia with Nunn in January, . As I handed Nunn
his copy to peruse on the sixteen-hour flight from Washington to Manila, I
thought, This will keep him busy for a while. Nunn finished studying the note-
books by the time the flight was only half over and asked, “Do you have any-
thing else for me to read?”
A former member of Nunn’s personal staff said, “Nunn wants to be a
firm but friendly prodder of the military . . . and believes you cannot have
lasting influence over an institution unless it respects you.” Senator Carl Levin
(D-Michigan) complimented Nunn’s independence: “He is willing to disagree
with the White House, even if it is occupied by his own party, and that is im-
portant.”
Senate colleagues also admired Nunn’s personal character. Senator David L.
Boren (D-Oklahoma) said, “He has an excellent reputation for personal integ-
rity.”42 Nunn could be counted on to consistently act in an honest, honorable,
and fair way—an attribute that earned him trust. When it came to defense
matters, an observer said, “Much of his credibility rests on his reputation for
open-mindedness.”43
Nunn’s career followed in the footsteps of two other giants in military affairs
from Georgia. The first was Sen. Richard Russell, the venerable SASC chair-
man who died in . Seven years later, in my first months on the staff, Chair-
man John Stennis lectured me many times about the great Senator Russell.
Nunn held the seat Russell once occupied.
The other Georgia giant was Nunn’s great-uncle, Cong. Carl Vinson, a
House member for a record fifty years. Vinson joined the Naval Affairs Commit-
tee when he arrived in  and became its chairman in . He was described
as “one of the Navy’s best friends on Capitol Hill.”44 When the House merged its
Naval Affairs and Military Affairs Committees in , Vinson served first as rank-
ing Democrat of the new Armed Services Committee and then chairman until
. During the unification debates of the s and s, Vinson supported
the navy, dominated the House debate, and was instrumental in preserving au-
tonomy for the navy and other services. Nunn’s interest in reorganization put
him at odds with his legendary great-uncle.
By late September, I had gained approval for my proposed hearings. I suggested

eleven more sessions. One would feature outside witnesses as a counterweight
to Weinberger. The OSD, OJCS, and unified and specified commands would each
warrant a hearing. Two sessions would address the military departments. Sepa-
rate sessions would consider the department’s resource allocation and acquisi-
tion processes. Looking to the larger national security community, another
would consider the interagency system’s impact on management of military
affairs. Two sessions were left for broad commentary.
Eleven of thirty-one planned witnesses had appeared before the House In-
vestigations Subcommittee in  and , but twenty would testify on reor-
ganization for the first time, signifying the broader scope of the Senate inquiry.
I grouped witnesses so the committee could hear conflicting views and recom-
mendations in each sitting.
The second reorganization hearing, on September , presented three out-
side witnesses who provided alternative views to Weinberger’s. General Krulak
appeared to present positions expressed in his book. Philip A. Odeen and Richard
Steadman had each prepared a report for President Carter’s – Defense
Organization Study. Eight days later, former Defense Secretary Elliot L.
Richardson, joined by former Deputy Defense Secretary W. Graham Claytor Jr.,
who had also served as navy secretary, testified on OSD. On October , General
Jones and General Louis H. Wilson, a former Marine commandant and close
friend of Senator Stennis, testified on the JCS. General Vessey, the incumbent
chairman, followed them.
The first four hearings featured conflicting testimony and ended inconclu-
sively. Widely varying descriptions of problems and solutions confused mem-
bers. Of nine witnesses, five—Odeen, Steadman, Richardson, Claytor, and
Jones—supported significant reforms; three—Weinberger, Wilson, and Vessey—

defended the status quo or offered only minor changes. Only one witness, Krulak,
argued for turning the organizational clock back to a previous era. Tower did
not comment on Krulak’s intellectual isolation, but he at least began to under-
stand that reorganization involved much more than the former marine general’s
simplistic remedies.
Four weeks passed before the committee held its fifth hearing. During this
break, two incidents occurred that would profoundly affect the reorganization
controversy.
On Sunday, October , , a terrorist rammed a truck loaded with explo-
sives into the barracks of the marine contingent of the multinational peace-
keeping force in Lebanon. The blast had the force of six tons of dynamite,
destroyed the building at the Beirut airport, and killed  servicemen, in-
cluding  marines, the greatest number of marine deaths in a single day
since the World War II battle of Iwo Jima and “the greatest peacetime tragedy
to ever befall the Marine Corps.”45 Major General James M. Myatt described its
effect: “I’ll never forget it—Beirut is to Marines what Pearl Harbor is to Ameri-
cans.”46 The tragedy was a major setback for America’s foreign policy and in-
ternational standing.
In hindsight, the disaster resulted from the Marine Corps’s unprepared-
ness to deal with virulent terrorism. With DoD excessively focused on prepar-
ing for global war with the Soviet Union, lesser missions and threats received
scant attention.
Although organizational deficiencies did not rank as the principal cause,
the Beirut bombing had significant implications for reform. Adding another
failure to the long list of postwar military setbacks, it enlarged the perception
of an inept organization with ineffective leadership. Some began to question
Vessey’s leadership, and the bombing’s aftermath markedly diminished Ma-
rine Commandant P. X. Kelley’s standing.
The disaster placed a spotlight on command relationships within the U.S.
European Command (EUCOM), the unified command responsible for the
Lebanon mission, and revealed limited authority by the EUCOM com-
mander and dysfunctional barriers imposed by the navy and marine chains
of command.47
Still reeling from the news from Beirut, the nation awoke on the morning
of October  to find that U.S. armed forces had invaded the tiny Caribbean
island of Grenada. The island’s Marxist government was building, with Cu-
ban assistance, an airfield capable of handling large military aircraft. The
Reagan administration feared that Grenada would permit Cuba and the So-
viet Union to operate military aircraft from the field and that Grenada would
attempt to destabilize its Caribbean neighbors.
17. Defense bureaucratic warfare is depicted in this cartoon that appeared

in the Armed Forces Journal International in August, 1983.
When the regime’s leader and four government ministers were assassi-
nated, chaos prevailed. The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States urged
the United States to restore democracy to Grenada. Beyond regional security,
Reagan and his advisers worried about the safety of nearly six hundred Ameri-
can medical students in Grenada.
Code-named Operation Urgent Fury, the surprise invasion posed a public
relations challenge for the administration. Initially, the public reacted skepti-
cally. Some charged that the administration had invaded Grenada to divert at-
tention from its failed Lebanon policy.48
Tower focused the SASC’s inquiries on the foreign policy issues of the Beirut
bombing and Grenada incursion, not their implications for reorganization. The
chairman was determined to defend administration policy in both cases.
The committee scheduled a closed hearing on Beirut with Weinberger for
October , two days after the bombing. The Marine Corps’s deputy chief of
staff for plans, policies, and operations, Lt. Gen. Bernard E. “Mick” Trainor, ac-
companied the secretary. Trainor was substituting for Kelley, whom Reagan
had sent to Beirut the day after the bombing.
Given the morning’s news of the Grenada invasion, Weinberger was asked
to address events in both Beirut and Grenada. With only fragmentary informa-
tion available, the hearing contributed little to the committee’s understanding
of either incident. Addressing Trainor, Tower summed up the prevailing mood
on the Beirut bombing: “It occurs to me that something was missing in the
security element there. . . . you can see the concern of this committee that we
didn’t do everything, to the extent possible, to at least minimize the risk . . . we
would like to talk to General Kelley at the earliest possible moment on his
return.”49
Nearly six thousand miles away in Beirut, Kelley was making headlines
with ill-advised pronouncements. The next day’s Washington Post announced:
“Marine Chief ‘Totally Satisfied’ Beirut Had Adequate Security.” The lead para-
graph reported from Beirut: “Marine Commandant Gen. Paul X. Kelley said
here today that he was ‘totally satisfied’ with security procedures in effect be-
fore Sunday’s terrorist bombing that has left at least  marines and other
U.S. servicemen dead [death toll at the time].”50
“I think we had adequate security measures,” Kelley told reporters. “One
has to realize if you have a determined individual who is willing to give up his
life, chances are he’s going to get through and do that.”
The commandant’s emotions were running high. On his way to Beirut, he
made “an emotional stop” in Wiesbaden, West Germany, to visit Beirut casual-
ties at an American military hospital. In Beirut, Kelley watched rescue workers
“dig through the rubble for bodies, amid an increasingly strong stench.”
Kelley’s assessment stunned both administration and congressional offi-
cials. Tower made no effort to defend Beirut security arrangements or the
commandant’s statements. He expressed the SASC consensus “that the secu-
rity was not adequate. It is difficult to defend against terrorist attacks, but that
threat could have been minimized, in my judgment.” Even Sen. Pete Wilson (R-
California), a former marine, criticized protective measures: “What seems to
have been lacking, plain and simple, is adequate security against an act of
terror.”51
Officers at Marine Corps headquarters were scrambling to figure out how
to calm down the emotional commandant and minimize damage from his as-
tounding statements.
On October , the SASC had its chance to hear from Kelley directly. Gen-
eral Bernie Rogers, an army officer and EUCOM commander in chief, also testi-
fied. The hearing started shortly after two o’clock in a closed session. A public
session would follow. As the principal staffer for the hearing, I occupied a seat
behind Tower and could observe the witnesses and sense members’ reactions.
The top marine had been a favorite of many committee members for years.
He had impressed them in hearings years earlier with bold, crisp testimony.
Some members viewed Kelley as having a good chance to become the first ma-
rine to serve as JCS chairman. But Kelley’s statements in Beirut had perplexed
his committee admirers. The general had uncharacteristically lost his compo-
sure in trying circumstances. His emotional comments raised some senatorial
eyebrows, but a solid performance before the committee would dissipate any
concerns. Unfortunately, Kelley’s performance that afternoon only enlarged
concerns. By the end of the five-and-one-half-hour hearing, the marine com-
mandant had killed whatever chance he had of becoming chairman.
Kelley meant to use his testimony to defend the Marine Corps’s honor and
defeat arguments that accused a fellow marine—Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, the
on-scene commander—of failing to provide adequate security for his men. On
his return from Beirut, the commandant found that “people in the media and
people in the Congress and people all over Washington [had] assumed a lynch
mob mentality.” Calls for Geraghty or Kelley to be court-martialed came as a
“great disappointment” and “hurt” the commandant. He felt “the institution
[the Marine Corps] deserved a fair hearing.”52
The commandant intensely spoke his first words. He stressed that it was
“imperative” he give his opening statement before answering questions. His
statement was unclassified, and the committee intended the closed session to
address classified issues. But Kelley insisted on giving his statement. “I feel quite
strongly about that. We have potentially  people [the death toll at the time]
who have died for this country and I have to say, in all honesty, I have a story to
tell, and I beg this committee to let me tell it in its entirety.”53
Kelley’s demeanor signaled that he had not calmed down. Members did
not like calling distinguished officers before the committee to explain failures.
Aware that they were going to have to take Kelley, and maybe Rogers, to the
woodshed, the members were tense before the hearing started. The comman-
dant quickly multiplied their anxiety.
Kelley spoke forcefully and dramatically while delivering his thirty-five-
minute statement. He used twenty minutes to set the stage by describing events
in Beirut over the previous twelve months. He then defended the security ar-
rangements. “I believe that only extraordinary security could have met that
massive and unanticipated threat.” He repeated his view: “This represents a
new and unique terrorist threat, one which could not have reasonably been
anticipated by any commander.” And again, “This flying truck bomb was an
unprecedented escalation in our terrorist threat, both in size of the weapon
and method of delivery.”54
Emotion overcame Kelley as he approached the end of his statement. “You
had to be there to see the devastation. For fifty hours prior to my arrival, day
and night, our young Marines had clawed at steel and concrete, more to save
the injured who were trapped at the time than to recover the dead. The emo-
tional scars were already deep, and they are getting deeper. ‘Why me?’ they
asked. ‘Why am I alive and why are my buddies dead?’”55
Kelley broke down and had to pause to regain his composure. He contin-
ued, “Their commandant was asked, ‘Was security adequate?’ I replied, ‘Yes.’
It was adequate to meet what any reasonable and prudent commander should
have expected prior to dawn on Sunday, October , .”56
Kelley finished with a theatrical flourish: “The perpetrators and support-
ers of this challenge to the rights of free men everywhere must be identified
and punished, and I will have little sleep until that happens.” It was the most
dramatic presentation the SASC had seen in years, if not decades. Kelley
evoked a spectrum of emotion to sway the senators. But he was out of step
with them. The commandant was using high drama when the senators
wanted cold, hard facts.57
After Rogers briefly described his responsibility as the unified commander
and his deputy’s postbombing trip to Beirut, Tower gave each senator three
minutes to ask classified questions. These brief exchanges began to convey that
Kelley’s testimony had not convinced members. As Kelley sensed their skepti-
cism, he became more combative. On occasion, his raised voice lacked proper
respect. From my vantage point, I sensed the members’ early sympathy for the
commandant evaporating in the face of his hostile rhetoric. As the committee
adjourned to a larger hearing room for the open session, I judged that Kelley’s
course, if unaltered, would lead to a stinging rebuke.
The public session began with Kelley again delivering his thirty-five-minute
statement. It lost even more of its appeal the second time around. In the ques-
tioning that followed, Nunn challenged Kelley’s assertion that marine com-
manders could not reasonably anticipate the terrorists’ use of a truck bomb.
He noted that terrorists had used a small truck to bomb the American embassy
in Beirut only six months before. Speaking of the five-ton Mercedes truck used
against the marine barracks, Nunn asked, “But did you say that that type truck
was seen often around airports?”
“Sir, that type truck is a common truck around the Beirut International
Airport,” the commandant replied. “It is used all of the time. There would be
no reason for that sentry to be suspicious as that truck pulled into the commer-
cial parking lot.”58
“If you could not have expected that size vehicle to come barreling
through,” Nunn countered, “then it seems to me that that is not consistent
with the statement that that truck was seen all the time around the airport.
Why would it be unreasonable to assume that a truck that was in common use
around the airport might be utilized for this type of mission?”59
Cohen, one of the commandant’s greatest admirers on the committee,
made the same point: “New meaning has been given to the words ‘at dawn we
slept.’ The fact that no one anticipated a terrorist attack of this magnitude and
precision, I think, is going to ring somewhat hollow to the parents of dead
Marines because there has been ample precedent for the loss of life in the re-
gion by car bombs, as you indicated. I do not know that it would take a vision-
ary to foresee that a truck bomb might be used to take down an even more
formidable structure.”60
Nunn’s and Cohen’s logic devastated Kelley’s arguments. Despite his erod-
ing position, the commandant continued to vehemently defend his statements.
In the process, the committee saw a Kelley it had never seen before. His testi-
mony was not crisp and bold, but emotional and inconsistent. He was defend-
ing the indefensible. Perhaps Kelley had determined that his duty was to shield
the commander in the field. Perhaps Kelley defended this commander so deter-
minedly because he had visited Beirut prior to the bombing and reviewed the
security arrangements. His predecessor, General Barrow, had done the same
just prior to his retirement. In fact, twenty-three generals or admirals had vis-
ited the marine contingent in Beirut during the six months prior to the bomb-
ing, including two other joint chiefs: General Vessey and Admiral Watkins, the
CNO. Having reviewed this list of visitors, Tower and his committee realized
that many officers in Washington and Europe had made the same error of judg-
ment as a marine colonel in Beirut.
Kelley’s reputation was shattered—with self-inflicted wounds causing the
principal damage. His previous high standing with members cushioned his fall,
but his influence would never be the same. The commandant’s lesser standing
would diminish the importance of his opposition to reorganization.
The hearing with Kelley did not satisfy the concerns of Congress and the
public. To make matters worse, the American people had not yet signaled their
support for the Grenada invasion. The White House and Tower began confer-
ring about having the senator take a fact-finding trip to the Caribbean island to
support administration policy.
However wide the first four reorganization hearings had opened Tower’s eyes,
he saw the light’s full glare during a private meeting with former Secretary of
Defense James R. Schlesinger on November . The committee scheduled
Schlesinger, a highly regarded defense intellectual, to testify at ten o’clock that
morning. Shortly before the hearing’s start, Nunn asked for a one-hour delay
to accommodate a last-minute request for his presence at the White House.
Schlesinger was already en route, so I arranged for Tower to spend the hour
meeting with him. I joined them.
Tower and Schlesinger were not friends and rarely, if ever, conferred. The
secretary’s persuasiveness that morning was not based upon personal relation-
ship, but rather the power and clarity of his ideas. Schlesinger’s analysis of JCS
structural problems was compelling, and his use of examples from his Pentagon
tenure transformed the problems from abstract to real. The secretary explained
his strong support for the reforms proposed by General Jones. As Schlesinger
talked, Tower’s face communicated that he understood and believed his analysis.
At the hearing, Schlesinger’s testimony provided the inquiry’s most power-

ful statement. “I applaud the committee’s courage in taking on this particular
issue,” he began. “It is hoary, moss covered, and thorny. Your task is a formi-
dable one.”61 The secretary then explained the need for reform: “Sound struc-
ture will permit the release of energies and imagination now unduly constrained
by the existing arrangements. Without such reform, I fear that the United States
will obtain neither the best military advice, nor the effective execution of mili-
tary plans, nor the provision of military capabilities commensurate with the
fiscal resources provided, nor the most advantageous deterrence and defense
posture available to the nation.”62
In the postwar era, Schlesinger said, “We have sought to preserve a degree
of service independence which has precluded effective integration of our mili-
tary capabilities. . . . we are in my judgment no longer able to bear the luxury of
arrangements which, whatever their advantages in preserving traditional in-
stitutional roles, militate against the effective execution of military plans.”63
The secretary identified the problem: “The central weakness of the exist-
ing system lies in the structure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . The existing struc-
ture, if it does not preclude the best military advice, provides a substantial,
though not insurmountable, barrier to such advice. Suffice it to say that the
recommendations and the plans of the chiefs must pass through a screen de-
signed to protect the institutional interests of each of the separate services.
The general rule is that no service ox may be gored. If on rare occasions dis-
putes do break out that adversely affect the interests of one or more of the ser-
vices, the subsequent turmoil within the institution will be such as to make a
repetition appear ill-advised.”
Schlesinger portrayed the result: “The unavoidable outcome is a structure
in which log-rolling, back-scratching, marriage agreements, and the like flour-
ish. It is important not to rock the boat.”
“What comes up from the chiefs is a mutual endorsement of the individual
desires of the several services,” he said on the subject of budget formulation
and force design. The former secretary elaborated on this in a sentence that
was often repeated in subsequent debates: “The proffered advice is generally
irrelevant, normally unread, and almost always disregarded.”
Schlesinger then addressed unity of command: “In all of our military in-
stitutions, the time-honored principle of ‘unity of command’ is inculcated. Yet
at the national level it is firmly resisted and flagrantly violated. Unity of com-
mand is endorsed, if and only if, it applies at the service level. The inevitable
consequence is both the duplication of effort and the ultimate ambiguity of
command.”64
Turning to solutions, the secretary advised: “We are wisest to follow an
evolutionary approach. I would move first to fix those things that now need
fixing—and avoid the quest for an ideal military command system. In general,
therefore, I would support the more modest reforms that have been suggested
by General Jones for strengthening of the position of the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.”
Schlesinger then addressed the defense secretary’s staff: “The Office of the
Secretary of Defense has grown substantially and has sometimes strayed be-
yond the appropriate boundaries of its authority. By and large, however, the
growth of that office is a reflection of the weaknesses of the military command
system.”65
By the end of Schlesinger’s appearance, Tower realized that he had put
himself in the middle of a controversy whose outcome—if decided on the mer-
its—might be unfavorable for the services. Regardless of how much Krulak’s
anachronistic ideas appealed to him, Tower now understood that they were
intellectually unsupportable, had no meaningful constituency, and could never
be enacted. The status quo, it now seemed evident, represented the best hope
of the services and other reform opponents. By isolating the chairman,
McGovern had permitted his boss to start a fight he could not finish.
Krulak’s book even disappointed General Hittle, a like-minded retired ma-
rine. In a “very personal” memorandum to Navy Secretary Lehman, Hittle
wrote: “As a longtime co-worker and admirer of General Krulak, and well aware
of his rare abilities and contributions, I submit, as you requested, my comments
and recommendations on his book. Regretfully, it is not, on the whole, up to his
usually high standards.” Of Krulak’s proposal to take the defense secretary out
of the chain of command, Hittle commented, “Such a proposal is fatally flawed.”
The general cited damage to the constitutional principle of civilian control of
the military as a central drawback of Krulak’s recommendation. Of the book’s
proposal to abolish the position of JCS chairman, Hittle observed: “The chair-
man is here to stay. The proposal is just not realistic.”66
Hittle made two recommendations to Lehman: “That you do not, in any
manner, be associated with a proposal to downgrade the secretary of defense,”
and “That your reaction to the book, if asked, be essentially: ‘It has much use-
ful reference material, as well as some omissions of material that would have
strengthened it. However, I do not support, nor does the Department of the
Navy, any proposal that would dilute or downgrade the status and role of the
secretary of defense.’”
Hittle’s tough memorandum soundly advised the navy secretary to hold
Krulak’s book at arms’ length. McGovern had prevented Tower from receiving
equally sound advice.
While Tower was trying to figure out how to extricate himself from his
predicament, the committee members were trying to absorb the complex in-
formation with which they were being bombarded. That proved difficult.
Schlesinger’s appearance began a compressed schedule of eight hearings in
fifteen days. Because each hearing focused on a different subject, the members
were soon overwhelmed. I had to lower my expectations. Exposing them to the

issues and building a solid record for future study became my new goals.
On Saturday morning, November , Tower traveled to Grenada on a two-day

fact-finding trip. Public support for the invasion was improving but not over-
whelming. Three committee staffers—Jim and Carl Smith and I—traveled with
Tower. The trip’s focus was on justifying the invasion. We devoted most of the
time to meetings with the governor general of Grenada, Sir Paul Scoon, prime
ministers of member nations of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States,
and American diplomats. These sessions provided powerful information in sup-
port of the operation, such as Scoon’s calling the action “a liberation, not an
invasion.”67
But Tower also wanted to better understand the invasion’s operational prob-
lems. He, the two Smiths, and I quickly sensed that the exhausted senior offic-
ers we encountered needed reassurance more than cross-examinations. Our
efforts to gather information on the operation became discreet. We listened more
than probed.
We learned that the army and Marine Corps had fought side-by-side under
separate chains of command. The army had trouble coordinating with the navy
for gunfire support, and the services had been unable to coordinate their air
activities. Planners and soldiers and marines on the ground had been forced to
rely on tourist maps. Worst of all, a third campus of American medical stu-
dents—whose rescue was the rationale for the invasion in the first place—went
undiscovered for days.
Upon our return to Washington, my fellow staffers and I prepared a lengthy
paper for Tower’s use in reporting to the White House, Congress, and the Ameri-
can people. Ninety percent of the paper was justification for the invasion. The 
percent on conduct of the operation was carefully worded. This was not the time
or place for the SASC chairman to blast the military’s performance. The public
relations battle remained Tower’s first priority. Moreover, our examination of the
military’s performance was too incomplete and anecdotal to merit use.
Tower reported on the operation in a positive tone and without judgment:
“The entire military incursion went quite well, considering the joint service
nature of the operation and the very limited time available for planning.” How-
ever, the chairman added: “Despite the overall success of the military opera-
tion, there are lessons to be learned. I intend for our committee to review this
military operation in some depth.”68
Committee efforts to find out exactly what happened in Grenada took years.
The Defense Department did not want Congress uncovering further evidence
of problems. The Pentagon’s shielding of highly classified information on se-
lected special operations forces complicated congressional attempts to compre-
hend the operation.
Tower released his Grenada report on November . He departed from the

script the two Smiths and I had prepared for him, and said: “In spite of some
flaws and glitches in the operation, one thing that strikes me is that this was
almost a textbook example of how a joint operation should work. All four ser-
vices involved, I think, did an outstanding job. It was organized on rather short
notice, and I think the implementation of it was very professional. Any intima-
tions of interservice rivalry, protection of turf, and differences of opinion, were
subordinated to the greater goal of a successful operation. . . . I think we have
to regard this as an extremely well implemented operation.”69
Although the staff did not yet have sufficient evidence, we sensed that this
had not been a textbook joint operation.
The committee’s last two reorganization hearings on November  were the

most informative ones of the seven following Schlesinger’s appearance. In the
morning, two former national security advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent
Scowcroft, a retired air force lieutenant general, dissected the interagency pro-
cess. Both opposed making the JCS chairman a statutory NSC member. “In prac-
tice,” Brzezinski reasoned, “attendance at the formal NSC meetings is at the
president’s discretion, and discussion is equally open to the statutory and non-
statutory members. The president calls upon those whose views he wants to
hear. There is no vote and no de facto distinction between participants. Thus
the views of the chairman of the JCS are heard as much as the president wishes
to hear them.”70
The former national security adviser considered the pivotal consideration
“the relationship between the chairman of the JCS and the secretary of de-
fense. . . . I would be concerned over changes which dilute the authority of the
secretary of defense as the president’s principal officer on defense matters.”
Years later, when the committee considered NSC membership for the chair-
man, Brzezinski’s and Scowcroft’s testimony proved decisive.71
Harold Brown, Weinberger’s predecessor, drew his afternoon testimony
from two chapters of his  book, Thinking About National Security.72 Although
a proponent of significant reforms, Brown considered major change “not fea-
sible at this time” and referenced his book: “If these radical JCS and military
service reorganizations make sense, why have not previous DoD administra-
tions (specifically my own) put them forward? The answer is simple: Ripeness is
all. Such changes are best proposed by either a departing or recently departed
administration, which cannot be accused of self-aggrandizement. They also
require the informed support of the incumbent administration. All the organi-
zational changes I have discussed are feasible, given an administration that is
strong enough and a modicum of acceptance in the Congress. But until now
they have not had a high enough political priority when that political strength
was present.”73
On JCS reform, Brown favored radical restructuring. “My own judgment is

that what I will call a combined military staff, or general staff, headed by a single
chief of military staff with a . . . deputy from a complementary . . . service
background, should be created and given the responsibility for planning and
direction for force application.” Such a staff, in Brown’s view, could engender a
joint perspective and overcome the problems of strong service identification.74
Brown’s proposal for a general staff raised a highly controversial subject. Since
the Second World War, Congress and service supremacists had created a “so-
cial myth” against the dangers of a “Prussian General Staff.”75 Few reformers
were prepared to challenge this bias.
In sequence and substance, Brown’s appearance provided the other book-
end to Weinberger’s testimony. The incumbent secretary defended the status
quo while his predecessor called for radical change. The disparity between the
two secretaries’ views and divergent opinions from other witnesses left mem-
bers perplexed. The hearings had not defined a clear course of action.
After the last hearing, Tower and McGovern quietly put reorganization on
the back burner. During the remaining fourteen months of Tower’s chairman-
ship, the committee held no more hearings on reorganization nor did it take
any other initiatives.
Tower still wanted to be secretary of defense, but the Texas Republican
believed that his chances lay in opposing, not proposing, defense reforms. Tower
would stay out of the reorganization minefield—if he could.
As  ended, nearly two years had passed since General Jones had first
called for JCS reform. Both houses of Congress had held lengthy series of hear-
ings. Weinberger had asked the JCS to assess the need for reform. The admin-
istration had submitted its own modest bill. The House had twice passed JCS
reorganization bills. The media had reported every step, yet no progress had
been made.
Some analysts believed the prospects for meaningful reform had dimmed over
the past two years. After a year of wavering, the Pentagon was digging in its
heels, refusing to yield to anything beyond the token changes in the admini-
stration’s proposal. With the popular Vessey joining Weinberger in opposition
to broader reorganization, the Pentagon had solidified its position. Jones and
Meyer had retired, and no uniformed crusader had emerged to push their pro-
posals. The president appeared content to support his old pal, Weinberger.
The “progress” in the House deceived observers. White had been able to
gain approval of a bill, but his subcommittee, his committee, and the House
were not committed to reform. Nichols and many other Investigations Sub-
committee members saw their  bill as “unfinished Dick White business.”
That view would not produce commitment. White and Nichols believed that
needed fixes required only limited legislation. The modesty of both House bills
had disheartened reform advocates.
On the Senate side, Tower had erred in starting a reorganization inquiry.
Following a midcourse correction, he was prepared to fight off DoD reorganiza-
tion. His zigzags had only added to the confusion.
Amidst all this, principles for organizing the American military establish-
ment remained confused. Nearly three decades of inattention to organizational
issues and the parochialism of service supremacists had engulfed the debate in
an impenetrable fog. Two years had passed, and the Pentagon’s organizational
defects were no closer to being fixed. Reorganization opponents seemed to be
gaining momentum.
Beirut 139
PART
2
Drawing
Battle Lines
140 Drawing Battle Lines
Beirut 141
CHAPTER 7
Beirut
Man is only truly great when he acts
from the passions.
—Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby
E verything went wrong in Lebanon in . In April, sixty-one people died

when the American embassy was destroyed by a car bomb; , Marines
were ashore struggling with a peacekeeping mission that the Pentagon opposed;
and one navy flier was killed and another was captured when two planes were
shot down while on perhaps the most inaccurate and stupidest bombing mis-
sion ever devised. Then, in October, a suicide terrorist attack leveled a four-
story reinforced concrete barracks and killed  servicemen, almost all of them
marines. Of all those mishaps, the one that lingers most painfully is the death
of all those marines—a tragedy known now simply as “Beirut.”
The marine barracks bombing rocked Cong. Bill Nichols. Less than a month
earlier, the World War II veteran had visited those marines. “I had rapped with
them. We made pictures. I had written their mothers and fathers, those from
our district.” Nichols had connected to those young men. The death of so many
was “a great personal loss.”1 The Alabama Democrat also regretted that he
had abandoned his earlier opposition to the Lebanon mission. In September,
military personnel in Beirut had persuaded Nichols to support a continuing
American role.2
Nichols chaired the Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Ser-
vices Committee, which the House expected to investigate the disaster. He spent
the next two months examining painful facts.
Although the subcommittee possessed little expertise on terrorism, its two-
year study of JCS reform gave the members the confidence to question the per-
formance of the operational chain of command between Washington and the

Beirut marines. The subcommittee’s work on Beirut convinced Nichols of the
need for reform.3
This tragedy and his personal connection to the dead and wounded ma-
rines galvanized Nichols on reorganization. “No member who took part in that
investigation will ever forget it; the magnitude of the tragedy . . . seared our
consciousness indelibly,” he later observed. By December, when the investiga-
tion was finished, Nichols no longer viewed reforming the JCS system as Cong.
Dick White’s unfinished business. It was now his issue, and he was committed
to fixing the organizational defects that had contributed to  deaths in Beirut.4
When the bomb exploded, marines had been deployed in Lebanon for nearly
thirteen months. The second Multinational Force (MFO) for Lebanon—initially
made up of French, Italian, and American forces and later including a small
British component—assumed its duties on September , . The shore-based
contingent of the U.S. force was a marine amphibious unit (MAU) consisting of
a ,-man battalion landing team (BLT), medium helicopter squadron, and
logistics support group. Every six months, a new MAU rotated to Beirut.
The marines encamped at the international airport in south Beirut, “the
lowest and least defensible terrain in the area, squeezed between rival Sunnis
and Shiites on the north and south, against the Mediterranean Sea to the west
and the Shouf Mountains to the east.” Although this was an “obviously vul-
nerable” location, the basic assumption envisioned a “permissive environ-
ment.”5
The U.S. European Command, a unified command headquartered in
Stuttgart, West Germany, controlled American military activities in Lebanon.
The command focused principally on NATO’s defense of Western Europe, but
its geographic area of responsibility included Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. The
Beirut marines were assigned a two-part peacekeeping mission: “establish an
environment that would facilitate the withdrawal of foreign military forces from
Lebanon” and “assist the Lebanese government and the Lebanese armed forces
in establishing sovereignty and authority over the Beirut area.”6
In a major confrontation with the White House and State Department,
Secretary Weinberger and the JCS had vehemently opposed participation in
the Lebanon mission. The Pentagon, “playing the role of pacifist,” had pro-
voked an attitude of “near-contempt” by some civilian officials.7 Responding to
Weinberger’s opposition to use of marines, “senior State Department officials
jokingly offered to call for several hundred volunteers from the Foreign Ser-
vice.”8 Critics of the military’s attitude called the Pentagon the “Ministry of
Pacifism” and the JCS the “Never-Again Club.”9
The dispute centered on “serious differences about whether anything can
be gained by using force and about conditions under which it is to be used.”
The State Department argued that the marine deployment exemplified “a great
Beirut 143
power’s use [of] limited amounts of power judiciously at the right time” to back
up diplomacy.10 Weinberger and the military “never felt the use of force in Leba-
non provided leverage to get a political-diplomatic solution.” The Pentagon also
saw the use of force against Arabs as “counter to our overall national security
objectives in the Middle East.”
Memories of the Vietnam quagmire contaminated the military’s attitude
toward the Beirut mission. Vietnam permanently scarred the American military
psyche through “the sense of abandonment and betrayal, anguish at being de-
picted as moral monsters, and resentment at being scapegoated for a debacle not
entirely of their making.”11 The military learned one overarching lesson from
conflict in Indochina: no more Vietnams. Since the end of that disastrous de-
bacle in Southeast Asia, the military had vigorously resisted involvement in
ambiguous conflicts, such as Lebanon, for which the United States lacked un-
derstanding and skills and where its technological superiority offered little le-
verage. The Pentagon became increasingly reluctant to involve U.S. forces “with-
out clear public support and a clearly defined mission.”12
The White House overrode Pentagon objections to the Beirut mission, but
it could not inspire its commitment. Throughout the deployment, the Depart-
ment of Defense sought to end the mission, viewing it as excessively risky.
Weinberger called it “a very dirty, very dirty, disagreeable and miserable job”
and “one of the most miserable jobs ever assigned.”13
The June, , Israeli invasion had thrown Lebanon into turmoil. Beginning
on August , marines participated for seventeen days in the first MFO opera-
tion: facilitating the withdrawal of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
forces from Beirut and helping to stabilize the city. The assassination of Pres.-
elect Bashir Gemayel on September  and the slaughter of Palestinian refu-
gees on September  plunged the Lebanese capital into chaos. The Lebanese
government requested that the MFO return.
At first, the second MFO was “warmly greeted by the Lebanese people,”
and the leathernecks operated in a “low-threat environment.” In November,
the marines began training the Christian-dominated Lebanese armed forces,
diminishing their neutrality in the eyes of some Muslim factions.
On March , , a grenade tossed by members of an Islamic funda-
mentalist group wounded five marines. One month later, a large car bomb par-
tially destroyed the U.S. embassy and caused sixty-one fatalities, including sev-
enteen Americans. When ground fire struck a marine helicopter on May , the
operating environment was recategorized as “high-threat.”14
After terrorists in Europe had earlier attacked two four-star U.S. Army gen-
erals, Alexander Haig and Frederick Kroesen, Gen. William Y. Smith, an air
force officer serving as EUCOM’s deputy commander, established a EUCOM office
on antiterrorism.15 Colonel William T. Corbett, a former army Green Beret and
Vietnam veteran with a “profound grasp of America’s politico-military prob-

lems and what caused them,” headed this office.16
Three days after the embassy bombing, Smith sent Corbett to Beirut to re-
view the security of the -man Office of Military Cooperation (OMC), primarily
a Special Forces contingent, which was equipping and retraining the Lebanese
army. Corbett established barricades and other defenses around the office’s hotel
and dispersed its personnel among many hotels.
Corbett saw the embassy bombing as “the start of a terrorist campaign
against the American presence in Lebanon,” while the JCS chairman, General
Vessey, characterized it as “an inexplicable aberration.” Corbett prophetically
warned Smith: “Since [terrorist] organizations are motivated by an ideology
seeking long-range ends, a single, random act of terrorism against U.S. inter-
ests in Lebanon is nonsensical. More applicable would be a series of terrorist
acts, each, if possible, more spectacular and costly than the previous. Follow-
ing [the American embassy] attack, U.S. military forces represent the most de-
fined and logical terrorist target. . . . U.S. interests in Lebanon can expect an
attack more spectacular than the action against the U.S. embassy.”17
Smith told EUCOM’s director of operations “to make damn sure those Ma-
rines are secure.”18 Lack of authority precluded fulfilling Smith’s instruction.
Although EUCOM could pressure its naval component on the marines’ antiter-
rorism posture, the regulations in JCS Publication , Unified Action Armed Forces,
did not permit it to direct specific actions.19
Noel C. Koch, the Pentagon’s senior counterterrorism official, arrived in
Beirut on the same aircraft with Corbett. During his short visit, Koch observed
“serious shortcomings, particularly in managing intelligence related to the ter-
rorist threat.” Upon return to Washington, Koch arranged “for a small survey
team to go to Beirut.”20
The Pentagon sent an undercover military unit that specialized in clan-
destine activities. A marine, Lt. Col. William V. Cowan, led the team, which
arrived in Beirut on May . Cowan’s tasks included “a review of intelligence
support to the U.S. Marines.” He reported that “significant intelligence existed,
but that reporting, correlation and analysis were not coordinated.” The team
recommended “a centralized intelligence support capability to the Marines, who
were not augmented with the additional intelligence personnel and assets that
their unique peacekeeping mission required, particularly in a hostile environ-
ment such as Beirut.”21
The team’s report “was received with bland apathy in the Pentagon and at
Headquarters, Marine Corps” and was never seriously considered.22 Koch
blamed the fact that the team was “seen as having a special operations associa-
tion, that their report reflected adversely on people who outranked them; and
finally their work had been submitted with no opportunity for the military sys-
tem to sanitize their findings. This led to denials, ass-covering, and all around
Beirut 145
18. General P. X. Kelley visiting the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut
in August, 1983. Vice Admiral Edward H. Martin, Sixth Fleet commander,
is at Kelley’s left. (U.S. Marine Corps photo.)
outrage that the survey had been done at all. . . . The report was swept under
the rug.”23
Throughout the year before the bombing, Koch repeatedly briefed Joint Staff
officers on the shift in the terrorist threat from hostage taking to assassinations
and large bombs, but he was never given access to the JCS. After the bombing,
Koch asked the Joint Staff director, the army’s Lt. Gen. Jack N. Merritt, why, for
nearly a year, “no time could be found on the Chiefs’ agenda to discuss the sub-
ject.” Merritt answered, “Well, you know, terrorism is an easy thing to ignore.”
On May , the th MAU, commanded by Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, ar-
rived to begin its six-month tour in Beirut. The colonel was viewed as “one of
the finest officers in the Corps,” and headed almost certainly for promotion to
general.24 His unit included BLT /, commanded by Lt. Col. Howard L. “Larry”
Gerlach, for which the st Battalion, th Marine Regiment formed the nucleus.
As had previous units, the BLT headquarters and attached units housed them-
selves in the bombed-out, fire-damaged, four-story, reinforced concrete build-
ing once used by Lebanon’s Aviation Administration Bureau. This well-built
structure was repeatedly occupied because it “provided security from light to

heavy hostile artillery, rocket and sniper fire.”25
In June, , Corbett found Geraghty “fully aware of the dangers” and
informed about the “Syro-Iranian threat.” Corbett knew nothing of the ma-
rines’ tactical disposition and assumed they were spread out in perimeter bun-
kers. He had no idea that Geraghty and Gerlach had concentrated a large num-
ber of marines in a single building.26 Given the threat, this concentration of
troops was inconceivable to Corbett. “Had I known that these guys were living
in that building with that flimsy fence they had around there, it would have
blown my mind.” Looking back, he realized that “the people who understood
the threat didn’t understand the tactical situation, and the people who under-
stood the tactical situation didn’t appreciate the threat.”27
After a few stray rounds were fired at the marines in June and July, attacks
on marine positions by Druze Muslims increased dramatically in August.
Geraghty and Gerlach moved more of the BLT into the headquarters building
“to provide protection from further barrages.”28 That brought the number of
marines housed there to —more than a quarter of the BLT. Thus, while
Corbett was emphasizing dispersion as an antiterrorism measure, marine com-
manders were concentrating their troops.
On August , heavy rocket, mortar, and artillery fire killed two marines
and wounded fourteen others. For the first time, the leathernecks fired back,
using their -mm artillery. On September , two more marines died and two
were wounded in a rocket attack. Two days later the frigate USS Bowen fired its
-inch guns in response to shelling of the airport. This was the first use of na-
val gunfire in support of the marines ashore.
These artillery and naval gunfire barrages began a de facto shifting of the
mission from peacekeeping to peacemaking. In peacekeeping, force plays little
or no role. Peacemaking employs force to discourage hostilities or restore or-
der. President Reagan’s decision to use naval gunfire to support Lebanese army
troops under siege further shifted the marine mission toward peacemaking. On
September , after two navy ships had fired  rounds, all Lebanese factions
viewed the U.S. Marines not as neutral peacekeepers, but as “one of the fac-
tions firing on others.”29
As casualties mounted, Congress began considering its role under the War Pow-
ers Act. Many members viewed the Lebanon mission as too vague and the situ-
ation as too volatile. Nichols agreed. On September —nearly a year after the
deployment began—a Nichols press statement urged the president to “get Ma-
rines out of Lebanon.” He recalled his “grave reservations about sending a
United States Marine force there in the first place.” Nichols saw the marines “in
a no-win situation” which was “virtually hopeless.”30
Two of Nichols’s constituents, William J. and Peggy A. Stelpflug, agreed
Beirut 147
with his pronouncements. The Stelpflugs had a personal interest in the well-
being of the deployed leathernecks: The youngest of their five children, Billy,
was serving as an enlisted marine with BLT / in Beirut. The elder Stelpflug
had spent twenty years in the air force and piloted F- aircraft in Vietnam. Af-
ter retiring as a lieutenant colonel, he moved his family to Auburn, Alabama,
where he and his wife taught at Auburn University, Nichols’s alma mater.
The first four Stelpflug children had graduated from or were attending Au-
burn. Billy had decided to serve in the Marine Corps before going to college. His
early years were typical of the life of an air force “brat,” with family moves
from base to base and friends left behind. Full of energy, he loved the outdoors—
fishing, hunting for arrowheads, Boy Scout activities—and playing baseball as
a catcher. Billy also had a quiet side and enjoyed writing poetry. In his junior
and senior high school years, his academic performance had slipped from As
to Bs and Cs, and he had become a “hard-core hell-raiser.” Disappointed with
his performance and behavior, Billy began “looking for discipline, a right way
to do things, and to be tough.” He saw his answer in the Marine Corps, “the
toughest bunch of all.”31
Shortly after he graduated in , Billy started a three-year marine en-
listment. Following his graduation from boot camp at Parris Island in Decem-
ber, Billy’s transformation to a “tall, straight, strong, and quietly proud” young
man amazed his brother. Several months later, Billy wrote to his brother from
Beirut that “a strong family and hard Corps” had put him on his feet.
The youngest Stelpflug was proud of his service as a marine and of his
unit. He wrote his family, “I believe that I have wound up in the best possible
group within the Marine Corps infantry.” Trained to operate an antitank mis-
sile, the youngest Stelpflug was assigned to the Weapons Company of the st
Battalion, th Marine Regiment.32
The significant casualty toll on August  compelled Colonel Stelpflug to
write to Nichols urging withdrawal of the marines. “Lebanon has sunk so far
into unreasoning hatred,” he predicted, that the present policy “could well re-
sult in disaster and the useless loss of American troops . . . in a Mideast shoot-
ing gallery, in a crossfire between factions whose only interest is revenge and
death for ancient wrongs.”33
“Please be assured that I share your view on our American Marines sta-
tioned in Lebanon,” Nichols replied. He also told the Stelpflugs that he had used
a quote from their letter in his weekly radio program: “I felt it expressed the
heartfelt emotion of parents directly concerned for the welfare of their nation,
and their son.”34
In September, the House—invoking provisions of the War Powers Act—was
headed for a showdown on the marine presence in Lebanon. Speaker Thomas P.
“Tip” O’Neill announced that the House would soon consider a resolution to
keep marines in Lebanon for not more than another eighteen months. He said
the resolution reflected “extensive consultations between congressional lead-

ers and White House officials” and was “aimed at satisfying congressional
opinion.”35
Testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) in mid-Sep-
tember, Secretary of State George Shultz, Marine Corps Commandant Gen.
P. X. Kelley, and other administration witnesses “argued vehemently against
setting any limit on the Marines’ stay.” Kelley declared, “There is not a significant
danger at this time in terms of imminent hostilities to our Marines.”
In preparation for the coming vote, the HASC decided to send a fact-finding
delegation to Beirut to “assess the American participation in the peacekeeping
role.” A skeptical Nichols joined the ten-member delegation, headed by Cong.
Sam Stratton (D–New York). The delegation spent September  and  on ships
off the coast of Lebanon and an afternoon with “the troops in their sandbagged
positions at the Beirut International Airport.”36
While ashore, Nichols visited with several off-duty Alabama marines. Lance
Corporal Billy Stelpflug was on-duty and not available to meet his congress-
man. As a combat veteran, Nichols easily related to the young men in uniform.
The Alabama connection drew the old politician and young marines together.
Nichols’s genuine interest in people and political skills contributed to the
warmth of their interaction.37
Nichols and his colleagues judged morale to be high among the officers
and enlisted men. They found most military personnel “decidedly in favor of
our remaining in Lebanon.” Officers and diplomats communicated their con-
viction that “withdrawal would increase turmoil and perhaps damage America’s
credibility and effectiveness worldwide.”38
The delegation’s report endorsed these views but did not recommend the
eighteen-month extension proposed by the House resolution, reasoning that
“setting a deadline too short or too long might be detrimental.”
In a separate statement, Nichols explained that his position had “moder-
ated” as a result of his visit. Handwritten trip notes reveal that he feared that if
the United States pulled out, the French and Italians would follow. “Vacuum
would cause blood bath,” he wrote. The marines “should remain there—for
the time being.”39
On September , the House debated for seven hours a resolution giving
President Reagan authority to keep marine forces in Beirut for as long as eigh-
teen months. Congressman Sam Gibbons (D-Florida) saw dangerous parallels
to Vietnam: “[W]e are asking young men to fight and possibly die in a war our
government is not committed to win. . . . If we are there to fight, we are far too
few. If we are there to die, we are far too many.”40
Speaker O’Neill countered that “this resolution clearly limits the scope and
role of the United States forces in Lebanon so that the danger of a Vietnam-
type escalation is avoided.” The House backed the “Reagan-O’Neill agreement”
Beirut 149
19. Congressman Bill Nichols with Alabama Marines in Lebanon twenty-

eight days before the October, 1983, Beirut tragedy.
(Auburn University Archives.)
to extend the marines’ stay by a vote of –. Nichols voted against the
resolution.41 The Senate voted in favor of the resolution on the following day,
although by a slimmer margin: –.
The HASC’s Beirut delegation judged that the mid-October attacks on ma-
rines were “deliberate” and “ominous.” On October —three days before the
bombing—Stratton, Nichols, and four other congressmen met with Weinberger
“to express their concern” about the marines’ increasing vulnerability.42 The
following day, Stratton detailed their concerns in commentary appearing in
the Washington Post.43
Shortly after midnight on October , a flash message from the USS Iwo Jima,
an amphibious helicopter carrier, shocked watch officers in the Pentagon’s Na-
tional Military Command Center. It said that “a large explosion at BLT / Hq.
Bldg. [headquarters building] collapsed the roof and leveled the building. Large
numbers of dead and injured.” This message arrived in Washington about forty
minutes after the blast.44
At : A.M. Beirut time, a lone terrorist drove a yellow Mercedes-Benz truck
laden with explosives into the lobby of the BLT headquarters building where
he triggered one of the biggest nonnuclear detonations ever. Pressurized gas

containers forming the bomb’s nucleus magnified its destructive power to equal
twelve thousand pounds of explosives. The blast collapsed the four-story build-
ing into a “smoldering heap of rubble no more than fifteen feet high” and
“burned, crushed, or smothered to death”  Marines,  sailors,  soldiers, a
French paratrooper, and a Lebanese civilian. Another  Americans were
wounded.45
The BLT commander, Lieutenant Colonel Gerlach, was in his room on the
building’s second floor. Blown clear by the explosion, he was one of the few
survivors from his part of the building. Rescuers found Gerlach “unconscious,
a total mess; no one expected him to survive.” He suffered a broken neck, dam-
age to his spinal cord, compound fractures of his left arm and right leg, and
numerous facial fractures. He remained in a coma for three days. In a separate,
but nearby building, Colonel Geraghty, the MAU commander, was “shaken but
unhurt” by the blast.46
Americans reacted with outrage, consternation, and sorrow. Nichols
grieved. His conviction that the tragedy could have been avoided deepened his
sorrow. The failure of his and his colleagues’ recent pleadings to Weinberger to
end the mission haunted Nichols.47
To ensure accuracy, Marine Corps reporting of casualties was, in General
Kelley’s words, “excruciatingly slow.” On Wednesday morning, three days af-
ter the blast, Washington received initial reports. Nichols’s heart sank. Billy
Stelpflug was among those reported missing. Nichols’s staff told him that Billy’s
parents had “expressed great concern and are bitter about your stand that the
Marines remain in Lebanon.” In anguish, Nichols pressed the Marine Corps
headquarters for more information. Three anxious days later, word came that
Billy was dead. Five other Alabamians were dead or dying. Nichols was devas-
tated. “The situation in Lebanon cut hard through Congressman Nichols’ heart,
spirit, and soul, and I could sense the real hurt in his voice,” a friend reported.48
The day after the bombing, Reagan sent General Kelley to Beirut to assess
the situation, but more importantly to determine how to shore up security. The
commandant recommended that a commission investigate the bombing.49
Kelley intended that something like a naval board of inquiry establish account-
ability and make recommendations for corrective or disciplinary action.
Weinberger agreed with Kelley and on October  announced that he would
create “an independent commission” to investigate the disaster and report to
the president. On November , Weinberger convened a five-member commis-
sion headed by Adm. Robert L. J. Long, the recently retired commander of the
Pacific Command.50
The HASC began full committee hearings on November  with Kelley as the
lead Pentagon witness. His exchanges with members were sharp and volatile.
Beirut 151
20. A view of the destruction following the bombing of the battalion

landing team headquarters building. (U.S. Marine Corps photo.)
Arch Barrett, the HASC’s reorganization expert, recalled that the comman-
dant “dressed down the committee and was very belligerent.” Kelley’s surly
responses to Richard Ray (D-Georgia) outraged members. Ray had visited
Beirut in September with the Stratton delegation. Based upon the threat de-
scribed to the delegation, Ray stated, “We should have been expecting just about
anything.”51
“Boy, you have a wilder imagination than I have, congressman, to ever
think . . . that the terrorist threat . . . was going to be a five-ton truck going sixty
miles an hour with , pounds of explosives, you have a better crystal ball
than I have,” Kelley responded.
When Ray began to reply, the commandant cut him off in mid-sentence:
“Why don’t we let the Long inquiry do its job, instead of speculating on that
type of micro detail?”
Barrett believed such confrontational behavior “ruined P. X. Kelley” and
“severely damaged” the remainder of his tenure as commandant. Kelley “never
had any credibility before the committee anymore.”52 Members thought Kelley’s
“performance registered a greater dedication to the Marine Corps than to the
truth.” They blasted him for providing “often inaccurate, erroneous, and mis-
leading information.” Congressman Dan Daniel (D-Virginia), a strong military

supporter, proposed citing Kelley for “conduct unbecoming to Marine Corps
traditions.”53
After two days of full committee hearings, Chairman Mel Price directed
the Investigations Subcommittee to complete the inquiry. Nichols assembled
six staffers, including Barrett, to guide the work. To conduct an on-site investi-
gation, Democratic Congressman Nicholas Mavroules led a six-member del-
egation to Beirut. The delegation convened on November  and  aboard the
Iwo Jima off the coast and heard twenty hours of testimony from eleven wit-
nesses, including Colonel Geraghty.
The Investigations Subcommittee heard an additional twenty witnesses in
Washington from December –. Vessey and Gen. Bernie Rogers, the four-
star EUCOM commander, appeared last. Rogers, a tough-minded military in-
tellectual and former army chief of staff, was highly respected on Capitol Hill
and in the Pentagon.
“Who was responsible for security oversight above the level of the Marine
commander on the ground?” Nichols asked.54
“I am responsible as the theater commander for everything that happens
in that theater,” Rogers replied. “Those below me are responsible for everything
that happens in their area of cognizance; those above me are responsible for
the same.”
Asked to comment on media-reported criticisms by unnamed officers that
higher command echelons had failed to carry out their responsibilities to the
marines, Rogers said, “I have been brought up in the school that when you get
so far away from the battalion you should let the people on the ground com-
mand it, supervised by the next echelon of command.” Rogers and Vessey had
discussed “many times” that “it is impossible for him to command that battal-
ion from Washington; it is impossible for me to command it from Belgium [his
NATO headquarters]; it is impossible for my deputy to command it from
Stuttgart.”
Rogers continued, “I give the authority to the deputy commander in chief,
European Command . . . to run that command within policy guidelines. But I
cannot give him the responsibility. I bear that responsibility, and what you are
really trying to determine here is not the responsible officer, but the culpable
officer.”
“The what?” asked Cong. Larry Hopkins.
“The culpable officer,” said Rogers. “Every one of us in the chain of com-
mand bears the responsibility. What you have to determine is at what level is
culpability.” As to responsibility, “there is no way you can dilute it. Once you
step into a command position, it is yours.”
The subcommittee submitted its report on December . The media de-
scribed it as “sharply critical” and “bluntly worded.”55 The report criticized “in-
Beirut 153
adequate security measures taken to protect the Marine unit from the full spec-
trum of threats.” Without naming Colonel Geraghty, it blamed the MAU com-
mander for “serious errors in judgment in failing to provide better protection
for his troops.”56 The subcommittee emphasized: “This is not a case of dereliction
of duty, or of neglect. But it is a case of misjudgment with the most serious conse-
quences.”57
The report also criticized the performance of higher elements of the op-
erational chain of command, which observers found “extraordinary.”58 Fault-
ing the chain of command represented a rare undertaking for a congressional
subcommittee. The Pentagon treated the chain of command as a sacred sub-
ject on which few officers considered congressmen to be experts.
For the subcommittee, decisions made in Washington—such as using na-
val gunfire to support the Lebanese army—and conflicts between American
diplomats and on-scene commanders clouded any determination of account-
ability. The subcommittee gave little attention to issues beyond performance of
the operational chain of command because it was “just difficult enough to try
to find and put your finger on who was responsible.”59
The subcommittee concluded that Rogers and his subordinate command-
ers had not fulfilled their responsibilities, and that “these higher command ele-
ments failed to exercise sufficient oversight of the MAU. Visits by higher-level
commanders were commonly familiarization briefings and appeared not to pro-
vide positive oversight, such as directives to improve security. . . . The subcom-
mittee is particularly concerned that the higher level commanders did not re-
evaluate the MAU security posture in light of increasing vulnerability of the
unit in the weeks before the bombing.”60
Given the volatility of the environment and small size of the marine unit,
the Washington-Beirut chain of command was excessively cumbersome and
long. Eight layers existed between Reagan and the BLT commander, not in-
cluding the JCS. Navy Secretary John Lehman described this command path as
“bloated and paralyzed.” Admiral Crowe, who had served in the Beirut chain
of command until June, , called it “long, complex, and clumsy.”61
On December , the day after the Nichols subcommittee filed its report, the
Long Commission submitted its report to Weinberger, although the White House
did not release it until December . The report criticized the military’s perfor-
mance. But by also lambasting the mission, it sided with the Pentagon.
Although the two documents were “similar and equally critical,” the Long
Commission’s report overshadowed the congressional report. The commission’s
membership—a retired four-star admiral, a former four-star-equivalent civil-
ian, two retired three-star generals, and an active three-star general—assured
this outcome. The group’s collective expertise vastly exceeded that of Nichols
and his colleagues.
The commission’s “unusually blunt,” “harsh,” and “highly critical” as-

sessments, especially of the president’s Lebanon policy, astonished many in
Washington.62 Secretary Lehman later termed it a “blockbuster.”63 The com-
mission’s strong indictment of Reagan’s policy reflected “the sharp rift between
the Pentagon and White House.”64 Washington observers expected criticism
from Congress, but these presidential critics were military men, and Reagan
ranked as the military’s best friend. He had staunchly supported the military
and had given priority to the defense buildup. Despite Reagan’s unwavering
support, chilling memories of Vietnam caused the military to challenge their
boss on Lebanon.
The Long Commission placed principal responsibility for the “catastrophic
losses” on the BLT and MAU commanders. It faulted EUCOM’s operational chain
of command, citing “a lack of effective command supervision” and “failure . . .
to inspect and supervise the defensive posture.”65 The commission report’s last
analytical section addressed terrorism as a form of warfare and said the mili-
tary was unprepared to counter it.
The Long Commission judged the October  attack to be “an overwhelm-
ing success” for the terrorists, and that “the objective and the means of attack
were beyond the imagination of those responsible for Marine security.”66 The
commission further stated that “terrorism as a military threat to U.S. military
forces is becoming increasingly serious.” Suggesting the need for a new mind-
set, it declared that “systematic, carefully orchestrated terrorism . . . represents
a new dimension of warfare.”67
The Defense Department did not then consider terrorism to be a form of
warfare. It did not even define terrorism in the JCS Dictionary of Military and
Associated Terms. In fact, the Pentagon initially classified the servicemen killed
in the Beirut bombing as “accidental deaths” and not battle casualties. Under
pressure from Capitol Hill, DoD reclassified them as battle deaths. In announc-
ing the change, Weinberger revealed the conventional war mind-set: “The ca-
sualties of the bombing attack in Beirut were not accountable as battle deaths
in the classic military sense; however, the fact that they were not killed in an
accident is painfully obvious.”68
Long and his colleagues determined that the marines’ mission statement
and rules of engagement were “written to guide responses to a range of con-
ventional military threats,” and that the Marines were “not trained, organized,
staffed or supported to deal effectively with the terrorist threat in Lebanon.”69
The commission judged the marine unit as not mission-ready, implying a fail-
ure by the Marine Corps.
A failure by naval forces off Lebanon in the early daylight of December  com-

pounded the Pentagon’s embarrassment. Forty-two days after the marine trag-
edy, the aircraft carriers John F. Kennedy and Independence launched twenty-eight
Beirut 155
fighter-bombers to attack Syrian and Druze antiaircraft and artillery positions

near Beirut in response to attacks the previous day on two unarmed U.S. re-
connaissance aircraft. However, communication blunders up and down the
chain of command produced another disaster.70
The JCS ordered the aircraft launched “at first light” so that the retaliation
would occur within twenty-four hours of the attack on the reconnaissance
planes.71 This order reached battle group commander, Rear Adm. Jerry O. Tuttle,
at : A.M., one hour before the specified launch time. The chain of command
denied Tuttle’s repeated request for more time. “I told them three times I couldn’t
make it, and they said you’ve got to make it.”72
This short notice did not provide time to adequately brief and prepare crews
or load planes with the “right number or right types of bombs.”73 Moreover,
Tuttle planned a midday strike “when there would be no shadows to mask the
targets and the Syrian antiaircraft gunners would have to look straight into
the sun.” Under Washington’s timetable, the morning sun would still be low in
the east, “the targets would still be in shadow, and the pilots, not the antiair-
craft gunners, would be looking directly into its glare.”74
According to Tuttle, the JCS also instructed him to strike three sets of tar-
gets at once, placing “far too many aircraft in a very small target area directly
above the antiaircraft positions.”75
Unknowingly, by specifying details better left to the on-scene commander,
the JCS had greatly increased the risk to raiding aircraft and diminished their
chances of success. In the resulting “half-assed bombing mission,” two mod-
ern U.S. aircraft were shot down by primitive shoulder-fired antiaircraft mis-
siles.76 One pilot was killed, and the Syrians, in a major coup, captured his
navigator. Dismal bombing results contributed to making this a real fiasco.
Only two Syrian gun emplacements were destroyed, and a radar site was put
out of action for two days.77
Both the Investigations Subcommittee and the Long Commission focused their
examinations of EUCOM’s performance too narrowly. They only considered
Rogers’s responsibility for events in Beirut, not the adequacy of his authority.
This mistake led to critical omissions and faulty conclusions. The Investiga-
tions Subcommittee’s failure to assess the balance between Rogers’s responsi-
bility and authority was more understandable. Congress, which was focused
on the defense budget and interacted primarily with Pentagon offices, knew
little about the inner workings of warfighting commands. Permanent law re-
flected this inattention. In the two-inch-thick volume containing title  of the
U.S. Code, which governs the armed forces, only one brief paragraph addressed
the unified commands.78 Only Pentagon regulations prescribed responsibilities
and authorities of unified commanders. Congress did not examine such inter-
nal documents as long as they did not conflict with statute. The Investigations
Subcommittee thus had no reason to believe that an imbalance between respon-

sibility and authority existed. Barrett observed that when the subcommittee saw
all of the stars a unified commander wore, it “assumed he had authority.” Al-
though a number of earlier studies had decried the weakness of unified com-
manders, the subcommittee “didn’t know this area.”79
The Long Commission, especially Admiral Long, could not make a similar
claim. As commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Long had found an imbal-
ance in his authority and responsibility. “I didn’t have the requisite authority
when I took over.” The admiral discovered “an element of antagonism and en-
mity” between his service component commanders. Long also found his au-
thority undermined by “inappropriate and improper” activity in the Pentagon.
“There was an attitude of the service chiefs and their staffs in Washington that
they were the ones that were really calling the shots, operationally.” His staff
sometimes “intercepted operational directives from service staffs in Washing-
ton.” Long had experienced firsthand the handicaps hampering the effective-
ness of the nation’s frontline warfighting commanders.80
The Blue Ribbon Defense Panel’s July, , report revealed an imbalance
between the responsibility and authority of unified commanders. The panel
cited a  statement by President Eisenhower: “Because I have often seen the
evils of diluted command, I emphasize that each unified commander must have
unquestioned authority over all units of his command. . . . Today a unified com-
mand is made up of component commands from each military department,
each under a commander of that department. The commander’s authority over
these component commands is short of the full command required for maxi-
mum efficiency.”81
The panel found, despite Eisenhower’s arguments and resulting statutory
changes in the Defense Reorganization Act of , that the situation remained
“substantially unchanged.” It described “an organizational structure in which
‘unification’ of either command or of the forces is more cosmetic than sub-
stantive.”82
With this earlier work as background, the SASC staff’s initial thinking on
the adequacy of a unified commander’s authority was significantly influenced
by a study completed in April, , by a retired three-star army general, John
H. Cushman. The general, who had commanded the Korean-American force
defending the western sector of the Demilitarized Zone and approaches to Seoul
in Korea prior to his  retirement, had long studied defense organization. In
the late s he helped Gen. Maxwell Taylor, then serving as the army chief
of staff, implement changes mandated by the  act. During the Kennedy
administration, Cushman worked for Cyrus Vance, DoD general counsel and
later army secretary. Under Vance, Cushman “became deeply involved in how
the Department of Defense was, or might be, organized and operated.” Three
tours in Vietnam further expanded Cushman’s organizational insights.83
Beirut 157
Cushman concluded that operational commanders’ “authority and capac-

ity . . . are very much out of balance with their responsibility and accountabil-
ity.”84 Unfortunately, his comprehensive study was not widely read. Even the
Pentagon library did not have a copy in .85
Cushman explained that a unified commander’s authority, as specified in
Unified Action Armed Forces, had changed little since the JCS first prescribed it in
. The authority of the unified commander over his service component com-
mands remained severely restricted.86 During the Key West Agreement nego-
tiations conducted in , the CNO and air force chief of staff had sought to
“protect the integrity of their service operations” in multiservice commands.
They adopted service component commands as the device and insisted on a
division of authority that ensured a weak unified commander and powerful
service component commanders, which Cushman described as “powers with
whom the multiservice commander conducts negotiations as equals more than
as subordinates.”87
Although Cushman’s second theater command and control study was not
published until March, , he had formulated many ideas during , in-
cluding some on Beirut. In occasional meetings and telephone calls with me,
Cushman analyzed the barrier between the unified commander and his service
components created by Unified Action Armed Forces and service culture.
Cushman called this barrier the “wall of the component” and concluded that it
is “always inhibiting” and can be “devastating to mission readiness and mis-
sion performance.”88
He considered the marine barracks bombing “a classic example of the dev-
astating effect of the ‘wall of the component.’” He believed General Rogers was
inhibited by his limited authority, which “does not include such matters as ad-
ministration, discipline, internal organization, and unit training except when
a subordinate commander requests assistance.” Rogers’s authority also ex-
cluded “tactical employment of the forces” of a service component. Responsi-
bility for these areas, including antiterrorism defense and training, was as-
signed to the marine administrative chain of command, beginning with the
navy secretary and marine commandant and including the commanding gen-
erals of the Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, in Norfolk, Virginia, and the d Ma-
rine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.89 Both EUCOM and Headquar-
ters, Marine Corps, saw antiterrorism defense and training as a Marine Corps
responsibility.90
The European Command’s different approaches to two subordinate units in
Beirut—the marines and the OMC—illustrated the “wall of the component.”
After the embassy bombing in April, General Smith, the deputy EUCOM com-
mander, immediately dispatched to Beirut the command’s special assistant for
security matters, Colonel Corbett, to evaluate OMC’s security and implement
antiterrorist measures. The Long Commission praised this “prompt, positive
action” as “aggressive command involvement.” In this instance, Rogers and Smith

could be proactive because they did not have to overcome a service barrier.91
Rogers attempted to be similarly proactive in November, , when he
offered antiterrorism training to the Beirut marines. But the leathernecks de-
clined the offer, saying that “training our troops for these kinds of things is a
service responsibility.”92 Rogers was powerless to act. In Cushman’s view, look-
ing beyond the regulatory constraints, Rogers was further inhibited by a culture
that produced both “tangible and intangible resistance” to a unified commander,
especially from another service, when he seeks to inspect and impose standards
on what were viewed as internal service matters. Cushman judged that marine
generals in the administrative chain of command and navy admirals in the
operational chain would have taken “a dim view” of a security inspection of
the marines like the one given to OMC.93
General Smith also understood the limits of Rogers’s authority: “I really
felt the marines didn’t work directly for me. On paper, they were under our
command, but in reality, they worked for the commander in chief, U.S. Naval
Forces Europe, our naval component. They had their own operational and
administrative command lines, which flowed from the naval component com-
mander. I felt that antiterrorism training was primarily a navy and marine
service issue. We didn’t have any control over that. We could advise, of course,
but no more.”94
In Beirut, Colonel Corbett knew he “really had no authority with the ma-
rines.” The marines, he says, “worked for a chain of command which was not
mine. So, it never occurred to me to ask Geraghty, a guy in a tactical position,
to check his perimeter.” If he had, “The problem of the concentration of ma-
rines in that building would have been immediately obvious.”95
Rogers later confirmed—in line with Cushman’s analysis and Smith’s and
Corbett’s understandings—that he could not instruct the leathernecks on their
antiterrorism posture and training. He also understood that he lacked the au-
thority to modify the chain of command between himself and the marine unit
and that his “headquarters was being bypassed too many times, and direct com-
munication was going from the navy and Marine Corps, right down to the ships
and to the forces ashore.”96 Long also suspected that Rogers had been bypassed
just as the services had circumvented him in Hawaii.97 Unfortunately, the com-
mission report did not mention these circumventions or highlight how little
control Rogers had of forces operating on his turf.
Washington was bypassing EUCOM to a much greater extent than either
Rogers or Long imagined. An investigation uncovered thirty-one units in Beirut
that reported directly to the Pentagon. Orders to the carrier battle group off
Lebanon came “straight from the jury-rigged ‘Navy only’ chain of command”
that originated with the CNO. Only after the navy had set plans for fleet opera-
tions were superiors in the operational chain of command informed. The navy’s
Beirut 159
meddling “spoke volumes about the loss of discipline among the forces com-
mitted to Lebanon.”98
In addition to his assignment as EUCOM commander, Rogers served as Su-
preme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). His boss in the latter capacity, the
NATO secretary general, would not permit him “to go outside of the NATO area.”
This prohibition prevented Rogers from visiting the marines in Beirut, unlike
the twenty-three American generals and admirals who did travel to Lebanon
before October . The “question that is always going to haunt me,” he lamented,
is “If I had been able to go there, would I—different from the others—have seen
that there was danger and that we should do something about it?”99
The Beirut bombing fatally wounded American policy in Lebanon. Reagan did
not want to abandon this commitment, but on February  the administration
announced its decision to withdraw the marines. The last unit left the Beirut
airport three weeks later. During the eighteen-month deployment,  Marines
died,  were wounded, and  received nonbattle wounds or injuries—and
the United States did not accomplish a single basic objective.100
This operational failure collapsed America’s Middle East policy and forced
a strategic withdrawal from the region with an attendant loss of influence. Ad-
versaries viewed America as unwilling or incapable of effectively employing
military force to protect its regional interests. Saddam Hussein’s miscalcula-
tion in the  invasion of Kuwait may have originated with America’s re-
treat from Lebanon.
This “professional military debacle” further diminished the military’s stand-
ing at home and abroad.101 Preoccupation with conventional warfare had left
the military unprepared for unconventional threats, like terrorism. Reacting
to Vietnam, the Pentagon had excessively focused its planning and budget on
defense of Western Europe. Even the Marine Corps was “heavying up” for po-
tential action against the Warsaw Pact.
Unpreparedness for terrorism permeated the military from top to bottom.102
There were only a few counterterrorism experts like Colonel Corbett, and none
of them had much influence. The conventional war mind-set produced blind-
ers at every level of the Beirut administrative chain of command and most lev-
els of the operational chain. Colonel Geraghty and Lieutenant Colonel Gerlach
could not see the terrorist threat or did not know what to do about it. It was the
same with many of the twenty-three generals and admirals who visited the
marines. The joint chiefs themselves were uninformed on terrorism and un-
willing to listen to experts.
The JCS’s liaison officer with the Lebanese army recalled the marines’ land-
ing at Beirut International Airport in September, : “They ran from tree to
tree with their rifles pointed, thinking they were going to be attacked by an
army. I think they must have thought they were in Vietnam.” He advised the
marines: “Do not expect any classical offenses against you. Do not expect tanks
or companies or battalions to attack. Here, the only threat is terrorism.” De-
spite this warning, the marines in Beirut and their chain of command never
considered terrorism as a primary threat.103
The marine force fit the original, low-threat mission. Sea-based support
from amphibious ships was especially useful. As the level of hostility and ter-
rorist threat increased, however, marine capabilities were less adequate. Im-
mediately after the bombing, an analyst observed: “The Marines historically
have placed little emphasis on acquiring the engineering and other skills asso-
ciated with fortification and positional warfare. This comparative indifference
to the art of defensive combat has persisted despite the Corps’ experience in
Vietnam, notably the siege of Khe Sanh.”104
As the situation in Beirut deteriorated, the marines failed to prepare ad-
equate defenses against terrorism. “Marine defensive arrangements featured
limited dispersion, a dearth of barriers and protective reinforcements, and a
contraction of local patrols in the face of an increasing threat.”105 The
leathernecks erected few, “weak and largely symbolic” barriers. Deviations from
security procedures further exposed the marines to tragedy. The Long
Commission’s report noted: “The security posture on  October  . . . was
not in compliance with published directives.”106 Interior guards were not per-
mitted to have loaded weapons. One guard post was not manned. Light anti-
tank weapons were removed from guard posts. Use of rooftop observers was
discontinued. The reaction force was not on duty. The iron gate in front of the
building was left open.107 Geraghty and Gerlach failed “to take routine precau-
tions that the commander of any deployed military force would have taken
under normal circumstances.”108
The two colonels received no help from the marine chain of command re-
sponsible for their manning, training, and equipping. The Marine Corps had
failed to prepare for terrorism despite growth in the frequency and lethality of
international terrorist attacks over the preceding fifteen years. Nevertheless,
the commission did not condemn inadequate marine support to on-scene com-
manders despite substantial evidence of inferior support. The th MAU con-
sisted of the same forces and mix of capabilities routinely deployed for Mediter-
ranean Sea operations—a conventional force ill-suited for Lebanon’s
unconventional threats.
The Marine Corps provided only routine capabilities to its Beirut-bound
units. When one of Geraghty’s predecessors was asked how much specialized
training his marines received before deploying, he answered, “Absolutely none.”
This remained the case, even after the April, , embassy bombing.109 In con-
trast, the Italian component of the MFO possessed a tailored mix of capabilities
and underwent several months of special training prior to its deployment to
Lebanon.110
Beirut 161
Moreover, the marine chain of command claimed service prerogative to

block proffered antiterrorism assistance from EUCOM. Had General Rogers been
able to give Colonel Corbett the authority to order improvements in the ma-
rines’ antiterrorism posture, the terrorists might have succeeded in attacking
the airport compound in some manner, but they would not have found 
marines bunched up in one building. Had Rogers challenged marine resistance
to meaningful command oversight of antiterrorism preparedness, the issue
would have gone to the Tank. There, the service-dominated JCS would have
almost certainly rebuffed Rogers in defense of service authorities specified in
existing regulations.
After the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) assessed all prebombing data
to determine if the attack could have been predicted, Rear Adm. John Butts,
director of naval intelligence, said, “We concluded the chances were pretty good
we would have been able to predict.” But naval intelligence reflected terrorism’s
low priority, failing to assign even a single full-time analyst to work on the Beirut
threat.111
Despite such shortcomings, Colonel Corbett did not see the Beirut tragedy
as an intelligence failure, but rather one of “commanders and managers ne-
glecting their responsibility for security of their personnel in high-threat ar-
eas, against repeated, proven attack techniques.”112 One Middle East terrorist
group had mounted at least  car-bomb attacks in the thirteen months prior
to the marine bombing. “Any security professional who is waiting for intelli-
gence to warn him is going to fail,” said Corbett.113
Who deserved the blame for the Beirut tragedy? On the surface, the answer
appeared clear-cut. Washington had assigned responsibility for the mission to
the EUCOM operational chain of command, which began with Rogers and ended
with Gerlach. The Long Commission and Investigations Subcommittee reports
assigned blame based upon that responsibility. General Kelley, the marine com-
mandant, sought to absolve himself of any blame by noting that he was not
part of the operational chain of command.
The answer, however, is more complicated. Clearly, parts of the operational
chain—Geraghty and Gerlach—mishandled key responsibilities. But, the ma-
rine administrative chain of command sent a not-mission-ready unit to Leba-
non without the requisite training, assets, and assistance. Moreover, the Marine
Corps rejected EUCOM’s efforts to provide what would have been critical help by
Colonel Corbett and others. The actions and inactions of the marines’ adminis-
trative chain of command, beginning with the commandant, contributed most
to the tragedy. That chain deserved the principal blame.
After a thorough investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, a congressional
committee enunciated twenty-five principles it hoped would aid our national
defense and preclude a repetition of the failure of December , . The final
principle read: “In a well-balanced organization there is close correlation of

responsibility and authority.” Incorporating these principles into its operations
field manual in , the army expanded the final principle to say: “There must
always be a close correlation between responsibility and authority, for to vest a
commander or staff officer with responsibility and no corresponding authority
is eminently unfair.”114
The Long Commission forgot this principle. Its assessments and assignment
of blame were “eminently unfair.”
With General Cushman’s assistance, my SASC staff colleagues and I had
this principle in mind as we reviewed analyses of the Beirut bombing. We were
convinced that serious imbalance in the responsibility and authority of each
unified commander persisted despite the lessons of Pearl Harbor and more re-
cent operational setbacks. We were also troubled by the long, confused opera-
tional chain of command. In February, , having found the Beirut chain
“cumbersome and slow to respond,” the Pentagon cut out four naval command
layers.115
President Reagan preempted serious disciplinary action against officers blamed

by the Long Commission and HASC subcommittee. On December , the day
before release of the commission’s report, he accepted responsibility for the
tragedy, saying any blame “properly rests here in this office and with this presi-
dent.” Reagan felt that local ground commanders had “already suffered quite
enough” and should not be punished “for not fully comprehending the nature
of today’s terrorist threat.”116
Some supported the president’s “blame-stops-here attitude.” Others wor-
ried about “what this will do to the system of military justice.” The media viewed
the president’s action as a political “master stroke” because it “defused a critical
Pentagon report on the incident, left Democratic critics sputtering and earned
the gratitude of armed-forces careerists.”117 Many officers were also concerned
about the potential compromise of military accountability. A former JCS mem-
ber found it “very, very unfortunate that the president stepped in before the sys-
tem could work.” He considered it “a blow to military professionalism.”118
While Reagan had ruled out courts-martial, his remarks did not preclude
lesser punishment, such as disciplinary letters. In descending severity, these
were letters of reprimand, admonition, or caution. After discussions charac-
terized as “heated” and “intense,” and over the objections of top navy officers,
Secretary Lehman recommended that Geraghty and Gerlach receive formal
letters of reprimand.119 Weinberger discarded Lehman’s recommendation and
on February  ordered the navy secretary to issue mild nonpunitive letters of
caution to Geraghty and Gerlach. Such a letter, placed in an officer’s file to tell
him how to perform his duties better in the future, served no purpose for either
Beirut 163
man. Both of their careers were over. When the Marine Corps delivered Gerlach’s
letter to his bedside at a Boston Veterans Administrations hospital, he “was
virtually a quadriplegic whose ears were still ringing from the blast and whose
vision was unfocused because the bones stabilizing one of his eyes had not yet
healed in place.”120
Long called punishment of only Geraghty and Gerlach “very inappropriate
and grossly unfair, because there were other people who had equal responsibil-
ity to make sure the marines were better prepared.”121 General Meyer believed
“that Pentagon leaders needed some fall guys, and so that got them.” Although
recognizing that the on-scene commanders had some responsibility, Meyer
thought that the JCS and operational and administrative chains of command,
especially the generals and admirals who had visited Beirut, were also respon-
sible in that they failed to notice the marine barracks’s vulnerability or do any-
thing about it.122
Had Reagan permitted the system of military accountability to proceed, it
was certain to make the same errors as the Long Commission. When responsi-
bility and authority are so weakly defined, it is impossible to assign culpability.
Although DoD did not punish Kelley, and the Long and congressional re-
ports did not admonish him for his role in the Beirut disaster, the commandant
suffered professionally almost as much as the two colonels. Kelley’s efforts to
defend the Marine Corps for its indefensible failure backfired on Capitol Hill
and among marines. Congress saw the commandant trying to “dodge
responsibility.”123 His efforts to absolve himself “sent a shudder through the
Corps”; his testimony “made him look cold, as if the leader of the Corps wasn’t
watching the backs of his men in the field.”124
The operational failures and acquisition scandals of the preceding four years
troubled Congressman Nichols. The Beirut episode scarred and motivated him.
His personal connection to the bombing gave Nichols a “rock solid determina-
tion” to reorganize the Pentagon, beginning with the JCS.125 Organizational
deficiencies had plagued the marines’ employment in Beirut. Although Nichols
did not yet understand them, his commitment intensified as further study re-
vealed these problems.
As  ended, Bill Nichols was sure that he and his colleagues were on
the right track with their House-passed JCS reform bill. The Alabama Demo-
crat was anxious to begin working with Senate counterparts to enact legisla-
tion. He anticipated similar attitudes in the SASC, which had spent the last six
months studying reorganization. Moreover, Senator Tower had promised ac-
tion by his committee in the new year.126
Nichols had faith in Tower’s commitment. Events would not meet his ex-
pectations.
CHAPTER 8
Scholars and Old Soldiers
The discovery of uncomfortable facts had never
been encouraged in armies, who treated their history
as a sentimental treasure rather than a field
of scientific research.
—Capt. Sir Basil Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War
W ith the government stalemated over defense reorganization, public policy

institutions and universities became new battlegrounds for proreform
crusades: scholars and practitioners—many former officials and officers—held
conferences, convened study groups, commissioned papers, and published
books. These activities added significant information and ideas and helped build
political support for reform.
The navy quickly mobilized its own academic forces to defend the status
quo. It also mounted attacks on reform research, recruiting or infiltrating spies
into two proreform policy institutions to gather information. The navy suc-
ceeded in squashing publication of one scathing proreform paper, but its over-
all counterattack was weak. Reformers dominated the academic theater of
operations.
Private nonprofit research institutions on the periphery of Washington’s
political process frequently defined policy options. The government often lacked
time to do in-depth policy formulation; research institutions filled that void.
Since the early twentieth century, nonprofit research centers have represented
“one of the most distinctive ways in which Americans have sought to link knowl-
edge and power.”1 They are “an American phenomena” because “no other
Scholars and Old Soldiers 165
country accords such significance to private institutions designed to influence

public decisions.”2
The first such institutions, founded around , grew out of Progressive
Era reform and the scientific management movement. The Brookings Insti-
tution’s lineage dates to that era. A second generation emerged in the twenty
years after World War II to provide the government “sophisticated technical
expertise.” These “think tanks” derived their name from World War II jargon
for a secure room used to discuss plans and strategies. The term initially re-
ferred to military contract research organizations, such as the RAND Corpora-
tion, but came to refer to all kinds of private research centers.3 The third, larger
generation of think tanks emerged in the s and s. Generally operat-
ing with smaller budgets and staffs, these institutions focused more on political
activism than scholarship. The Heritage Foundation and Institute for Policy
Studies led this generation, which also included university research centers.
By the s, more than a thousand think tanks operated in the United
States. Of the roughly one hundred located in or around the nation’s capital,
sixty focused their research on foreign policy and national security. Two-thirds
of Washington-based think tanks were created after .
Beginning in , the U.S. Military Academy at West Point annually spon-
sored the Senior Conference, “an informal seminar to facilitate an open ex-
change of ideas on a topic of immediate and significant national concern.”4 In
September, , conference organizers from the Department of Social Sciences,
led by Lt. Col. Asa A. “Ace” Clark, selected military reform as the topic for the
session to be held in June, . At the time, they did not expect to include
reorganization under the reform rubric.5
Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado) introduced the term “military reform” in a
commentary appearing in the Wall Street Journal in January, .6 By summer,
he and Cong. G. William Whitehurst (R-Virginia) had formed the Congressional
Military Reform Caucus (CMRC), a bicameral, bipartisan group advocating less
complex, less costly, more numerous weapon systems and a shift of military
doctrine from attrition warfare to maneuver warfare. The reformers focused on
strategy, doctrine, force structure, and weapons acquisition issues. West Point’s
conference embraced three subjects: doctrinal innovation, quantity versus
quality of weapons, and the mix of heavy and light forces.
Following calls for JCS reorganization by Generals Jones and Meyer, con-
ference organizers decided to add a panel discussion on “The Question of DoD
Organization: To Fine Tune or To Reorganize.” Unlike West Point, the CMRC
never addressed reorganization.
Besides West Point professors, the conference attracted seventy-three ex-
perts from the four services, Congress, academia, and media. Congressman
Newt Gingrich, a leading CMRC member, gave the keynote address. General
Meyer devoted his banquet speech to JCS reform, arguing that such reform was
necessary for the future success of a military “not organized to go to war when
the big one happens.”7
James Fallows, Atlantic’s Washington editor and author of a  defense
reform book;8 Lt. Gen. Paul F. Gorman, an army officer serving as assistant to
the JCS chairman; and Philip A. Odeen, a former senior defense and National
Security Council official, comprised the organization panel and “generated
sharply divisive discussion.” Reformers argued that the JCS’s practice of proffer-
ing unanimous advice reflected “self-serving, service-oriented bargains, not
sound and coherent military advice.” Antireformers countered that there was
no compelling evidence anything was seriously wrong with the present system
and that reform would destroy desirable redundancy and competition and cre-
ate inefficient centralization.9
The conference did not have “time to consider the matter in detail,” but its
discussions did educate and catalyze participants. Fourteen conferees later
played significant reorganization roles. The conference also inspired eight West
Point professors. Four of them edited and wrote articles for The Defense Reform
Debate, which gave significant attention to reorganization.10 Three others con-
tributed articles. Two of the book’s editors, Jeffrey S. McKitrick and Peter W.
Chiarelli, and an eighth professor—Daniel J. Kaufman, a West Point classmate
of mine—continued to write on reorganization and became part of the Wash-
ington debate.
The Aspen Institute, a prestigious nonprofit institution dedicated to serving

world leaders, annually held an arms control seminar at its forty-acre site on
the edge of Aspen, Colorado. General Jones, retired for little more than a
month, and General Meyer attended the August, , seminar. Also present
was Edwin A. Deagle, director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s International
Relations Program, which funded the seminar. Deagle, a West Point graduate
and former professor and attendee at the academy’s reform conference, had a
strong interest in civil-military relations, the topic of his Harvard Ph.D. dis-
sertation. His doctoral research had revealed flaws in JCS organization.11 At
an evening cookout at Aspen, Jones, Meyer, and Deagle talked about JCS re-
form and the prospects for legislation. Deagle told the generals that if they could
mobilize “a hundred of the best folks” to aggressively press for legislation, he
would provide the funding.
Later that year, Douglas J. Bennet, a former State Department assistant
secretary and first president of the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Stud-
ies, a new Washington think tank focused on defense policy and disarmament,
asked Deagle’s advice on potential issues and collaborators. Deagle put Bennet
in touch with Barry M. Blechman, a former assistant director of the Arms Con-
trol and Disarmament Agency. In a later meeting, he advised Bennet and
Blechman, who was already thinking of defense reorganization as a potential

project to examine JCS reform.12
Six months later, Deagle funded a Bennet-Blechman proposal for the
Roosevelt Center to undertake a reorganization study. Blechman would coor-
dinate the Defense Organization Project on a part-time basis, and William J.
Lynn, a young attorney just hired by the Roosevelt Center, would serve as the
full-time executive director. Given Pentagon opposition, Blechman believed the
project’s leaders had to possess “impeccable credentials in the military estab-
lishment.” He persuaded Phil Odeen to chair the project, and recruited former
Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, a former
SACEUR and army aide to President Eisenhower, to serve as vice chairmen.13
In June, , Odeen announced the twenty-four-month project to prospective
participants, identifying the work’s primary target as “members of the next
Congress and the administration that takes office in .”14
In addition to Odeen, Laird, and Goodpaster, the Roosevelt Center’s steer-
ing committee of prominent defense experts would eventually total twenty-
four members. By design, members were overwhelmingly proreform. It “was
not a group to debate whether reform was desirable.” Blechman and his col-
leagues believed that Pentagon reform was clearly needed. The steering
committee’s purpose was to determine “what should be done . . . what would
be most helpful.” By the first meeting on July , the committee numbered
fifteen, including Jones and Meyer, Sen. Sam Nunn, Cong. Les Aspin, Bill Brehm,
and Blechman. Shortly thereafter, the Roosevelt Center underwent a “change
in management and philosophy” that put the reorganization project in limbo.
Deagle encouraged Blechman to find a new institutional home for the work.15
Both Blechman and Deagle viewed the Center for Strategic and Interna-
tional Studies (CSIS), a conservative policy center then affiliated with George-
town University, as a natural target. Founded in , CSIS grew rapidly in the
late s and early s. As the “most aristocratic” and “most ceremonial”
of think tanks, it abounded with big names. Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, and Jim Schlesinger served as “senior scholar-statesmen in resi-
dence.” Other big names included former JCS chairman Adm. Tom Moorer,
former Deputy CIA Director Ray Cline, and military analyst Edward Luttwak.16
CSIS had “created a niche . . . as an intellectual resource for newly active con-
gressmen and their staffs” and served “as a broker for discussion and accom-
modation.” CSIS favored “an informal and consensual approach to policy-
making.”17 According to Blechman, “CSIS seemed the logical place for the
reorganization project with its strong connections, ability to convene high-level
groups, and conservative credentials.” There was also a West Point connec-
tion. The center’s president and cofounder, David Abshire, graduated from the
U.S. Military Academy, as did its vice president, Amos A. “Joe” Jordan Jr., Deagle’s
boss as head of the academy’s Social Science Department. Other army and West
Point colleagues of Deagle’s on the -person staff made CSIS “a hotbed of

West Point intrigue.”18
The reorganization project and its funding from Deagle’s Rockefeller Foun-
dation and the Ford Foundation shifted from the Roosevelt Center to CSIS in
October. Four working groups were created: military command structure, de-
fense planning and resource allocation, weapons acquisition, and congressional
defense budget process. Steering committee members served on the working
groups, but forty-five other senior defense experts were recruited to populate
them. The project’s seventy-five influential participants contributed to making
reorganization “suddenly one of Washington’s most talked-about political
topics.”19
In addition to Nunn and Aspin, four other members of Congress sat on the
steering committee: William S. Cohen and Nancy L. Kassebaum from the Sen-
ate, and Newt Gingrich and Sam Stratton from the House. As a Republican on
the SASC, Cohen’s participation was particularly significant. A cerebral and
independent senator, he was considered “a thoughtful critic of Ronald Reagan’s
foreign policy adventures.”20
In , the forty-three-year-old Cohen was serving his fifth year in the
Senate following three House terms. Born in Bangor, Maine, to a Russian-Jew-
ish immigrant father and Irish-Protestant mother, Cohen “voted his own way”
in the “tradition of independent-minded representatives from Maine.” He styled
himself “as kind of a poet-philosopher.” An all-state basketball player in high
school and college, Cohen’s bachelor’s and law degrees were both cum laude.
In , as a freshman member of the House Judiciary Committee, Cohen was
involved in President Nixon’s impeachment inquiry. He joined “a small group
of Republicans who were the first to break ranks with their party” to vote for
impeachment. Cohen offered “a handsome profile in anguish, and he immedi-
ately attracted the media limelight.”21
The SASC’s senior Republican, John Tower, became Cohen’s mentor and
close friend. Reflecting Maine’s maritime interests, Cohen chaired the Sea Power
and Force Projection Subcommittee. Service on the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence broadened his national security knowledge.
When the CSIS project’s steering committee reached its full strength of
twenty-four, only Congressman Stratton, an infrequent participant, belonged
to the antireform camp. Admiral Moorer, although connected to CSIS, was not
invited to participate. According to Blechman, “Moorer was deliberately not
involved” because of his antireform positions. A navy memorandum to Secre-
tary John Lehman remarked: “Not much doubt how the reform will be struc-
tured with this lineup.”22
The navy spied on the CSIS project. Commander Thomas R. Fedyszyn, the
navy fellow at CSIS, sent written reports to Seth Cropsey, deputy navy under
secretary for policy and Lehman’s antireform point man. Despite the heavy
West Point influence at CSIS, the navy held a strong position as well. A former
CNO, Adm. Arleigh A. Burke, “played a major, probably indispensable, role in
founding, organizing, and developing” CSIS and served as its director for fif-
teen years.23 Moorer maintained the large navy presence at CSIS once provided
by Burke. Moorer also served as an important connection between CSIS and
conservative foundations that helped to fund it.
The project leaders at CSIS eventually released a nearly sixty-page report
entitled Toward a More Effective Defense in February, . It summarized work-
ing group analyses. A -page book, containing the full steering committee
and working group reports and other supporting papers, was published later
in the year under the same title.24
The authors of the report questioned “the effectiveness and efficiency with
which the United States plans, acquires, and operates its forces,” and suggested
substantial changes throughout the defense establishment. One of their ten
major recommendations proposed designating the JCS chairman as the princi-
pal military adviser and emphasized the need for him to prepare fiscally realis-
tic force planning proposals. The authors proposed that the Joint Staff report
directly to the chairman and that the Joint Staff director be designated the deputy
JCS chairman. They also recommended that each service establish a joint-spe-
cialty career path to prepare officers for joint duty, in line with the proposal
made by the Chairman’s Special Study Group in . On JCS issues, the CSIS
report paralleled Jones’s proposals.25
Another recommendation envisioned expanding the budget role of the un-
der secretary of defense for policy and providing an assistant secretary for each
of three major missions: nuclear deterrence, European defense, and regional
defense. Designating senior officials with mission responsibilities addressed the
criticism that OSD was “ill-equipped to translate mission-oriented planning and
programming guidance into force requirements and weapons programs.” The
SASC staff study had explored and written on this deficiency and proposed fix
for several years.
On budgetary matters, the CSIS report’s authors proposed that Congress
shift from a one-year to a two-year defense budget cycle. They also favored a
larger budget role for unified commanders, greater authority for them over their
service component commanders, and a separate budget for them to fund the
in-theater costs of their forces. The report’s authors also recommended a new
position in the OSD: under secretary of defense for force readiness and
sustainability.
When a completed draft revealed the authors’ proreform conclusions,
Moorer launched a brutal assault on the project using his influence with con-
servative foundations as his principal tactic. He told Joe Jordan, serving as CSIS
president while Abshire was posted as U.S. ambassador to NATO, that the “ter-
rible” reorganization report would “jeopardize CSIS funding from conservative
foundations, particularly the Scaife family foundations,” then CSIS’s biggest

donor, having given at least $ million in the preceding decade. Moorer’s threat
represented “a very serious problem for CSIS.” Blechman recalled, “It was not
something I had experienced in the think tank world before. I had never seen
such blatant threats against funding sources.”26
Moorer also “allegedly worked to have the Defense Department pressure
CSIS to end support for the project by threatening a cutoff of defense funds to
the think tank.”27 Such pressure would have been a mistake. Reorganization
had become a visible issue, and powerful members of Congress were partici-
pating in the CSIS project. Weinberger and his advisers avoided this misstep.
Moorer later denied that he had tried to undermine the report, saying: “They
had the deck packed. They say I tried to get money out of the hands of CSIS for
this report, but . . . they told me to keep my mouth shut, tried to keep me from
writing a dissent.” When a writer questioned him on his opposition, Moorer
angrily replied, “If you think American boys are going to execute orders from
people who have never heard gunfire, you’re full of shit and so are they.”
Navy Secretary Lehman also was reportedly working “behind the scenes
to block the CSIS report.”28 In a Defense Week interview, he characterized the
report as “one more of those wrong-headed studies. It’s the same old warmed-
over, more-power-to-the-chairman, let’s-create-a-general-staff idea.” Blechman
believed Lehman “was the eminence grise behind all these pressures on my
project.”29
Blechman was right. Lehman had instigated the attacks. To Moorer, Dan
McMichael of the Scaife family foundations, and Morrie Liebman of CSIS’s
board, Lehman had sent an identical, caustic note: “Attached is the outline of
your study at Georgetown. What is going on?”30
The project seemed caught between two influential foundations. When Jor-
dan told Deagle “if Moorer had his way, he would suppress the study,” Deagle
replied: “You’ll never get any money from me [Rockefeller Foundation] again if
you let Moorer suppress it.” But Blechman says Moorer was too late: “A com-
plete draft of the report had been circulated throughout the steering commit-
tee, and many eminent people with impeccable conservative credentials had
informally signed up to it. I couldn’t imagine that the report could be with-
drawn or very substantial changes made to it.”31
To escape this predicament, Jordan asked Moorer, Schlesinger, and Lt. Gen.
Brent Scowcroft, President Ford’s national security adviser, to review the draft
report. According to Blechman, this effort was designed to give Moorer “an
opportunity to make his views known” as well as show “his ideas were favored
by only a small group of people, wearing navy uniforms almost exclusively.”
Given the review group’s composition, “The outcome was never in doubt.”32
Schlesinger was “sympathetic to the thrust of the study and to many of its
recommendations.” Scowcroft was “enthusiastic in his praise.” Jordan reported
that Moorer argued that the “assignment of good people, both civilian and
military, and a clear-cut designation of authority, responsibility, and account-
ability will ensure the best performance” rather than periodic reorganizations.
Jordan also reported that Moorer particularly “disagrees with the proposals
to strengthen joint military structures” and “disagrees strongly with the pro-
posals to strengthen the unified and specified commanders.” This mix of views
permitted Jordan to endorse the report as a “high quality, but likely controver-
sial, study.”33
Eventually, CSIS was able to obtain the endorsement of six of seven living
former secretaries of defense. Only Donald Rumsfeld was missing from the list.
In the report’s foreword, Harold Brown, Clark M. Clifford, Laird, Robert S.
McNamara, Elliot Richardson, and Schlesinger spoke of “serious deficiencies
in the organization and managerial procedures of the U.S. defense establish-
ment.” Of the report’s recommendations, they were “united in support for the
general thrust of its proposals.” Besides greatly increasing the report’s stand-
ing, this endorsement diminished the likelihood of retribution by conservative
foundations.
Of seven think tank and university efforts, the CSIS project was “the most
influential study in terms of the political debate then unfolding.”34 Blechman
describes it as “probably my most successful project” over several decades of
think-tank work. It unified the voice of numerous experts, including six former
defense secretaries, in urging reorganization and articulating specific fixes.
Having so many prominent former officials endorse reorganization made it a
legitimate issue on Capitol Hill and “safe” for members to discuss. The project
also helped educate members of Congress, especially Nunn, Cohen, and Aspin,
each of whom would play critical roles in the coming legislative battles. Hear-
ing directly from former senior officers about actual operational setbacks and
petty interservice bickering especially impressed members.35 The project’s re-
ports and papers provided important information to the Senate and House
Armed Services Committees. Reformers were thankful that CSIS’s project had
withstood the navy assault.
The Heritage Foundation was not as fortunate. A navy attack on its reorgani-
zation project scuttled its most important paper. Heritage—even more conser-
vative than CSIS—ultimately came out in favor of reform, providing cover for
some conservative members of Congress who had been reticent to vote against
the navy on this issue.36
Established in , the Heritage Foundation flourished during the Carter
years. It was “credited with having written the Reagan agenda in .” At the
start of the Reagan administration in , Heritage published Mandate for Lead-
ership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration. The book was
“warmly welcomed by Reagan and his advisors.” In the early and mid-s,
Heritage was closer to the center of power in the Reagan administration than
any other think tank.37
Gingrich had pushed Heritage into undertaking its study and persuaded
the think tank to hire Lt. Col. Theodore J. Crackel, a retiring army officer, to
lead the project. Gingrich was a frequent lecturer at the Army War College in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Crackel served as the director of military history
and strategic studies. Both had majored in history from undergraduate through
doctoral studies and taught history, Crackel at West Point and Gingrich at West
Georgia College. Initially, Gingrich had tried unsuccessfully to have Crackel hired
as the executive director of the CMRC.38
On August , , Crackel began an eighteen-month assignment at Heri-
tage as a senior fellow and director of the Military Reform Project. The Smith
Richardson Foundation helped to fund the project. When some conservatives
objected to the term “military reform,” Heritage quickly changed the name to
Defense Assessment Project. The reason, said Crackel, was that “Some circles
felt that people who really only wanted to cut costs regardless of the conse-
quences had co-opted the term ‘military reform.’”
Crackel’s project dismayed some conservatives. In a meeting on Septem-
ber , Michelle Van Cleave of Cong. Jack Kemp’s office told Crackel that his
study would cause problems “because any ‘criticism’—real or implied—of the
administration or its programs will be used against them.” She put Crackel on
notice that “she and others were watching the project and me carefully and
that they would attack if we stepped out of bounds.” In his estimation, “The
bounds seem to be any criticism—however voiced”—of the current adminis-
tration.39
The project covered the entire range of reform issues, including weapons,
doctrine, procurement process, personnel policies, and organization. Crackel
hoped to arrive at a comprehensive blueprint that will “revolutionize the way
we conduct our defense business” and shift the focus of military reform “from
the current concern with specific weapons and doctrinal issues to more funda-
mental issues of process and structure.” Crackel, the project’s only Heritage
staffer, created four working groups: defense management and planning, com-
mand and staff structure, service roles and missions, and defense and the na-
tion. He recruited working-level people from Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, think
tanks, and industry to serve on these groups.40
Richard V. Allen, Reagan’s first national security adviser, chaired the
project’s eleven-member advisory board. Four Republican members of Con-
gress joined the board: Senator Kassebaum and Congressmen Gingrich,
Whitehurst, and James Courter. Efforts to recruit Senators Tower and Nunn
failed. In addition to Kassebaum and Gingrich, two other advisory board mem-
bers also served on the steering committee of the CSIS Defense Organization
Project: Meyer and R. James Woolsey, a former navy under secretary.
In September, , during Crackel’s second month on the job, Edwin J.

Feulner Jr., Heritage’s president and cofounder, told him, “Secretary Lehman is
going to give us a Navy fellow, and that fellow is going to work with you.” A
month later, Capt. William S. “Spencer” Johnson, arrived. He had been serving
on Lehman’s immediate staff as a special assistant. Johnson’s high-level con-
nections signaled that he was not a typical think-tank fellow. Crackel “was sus-
picious of the gift horse from the beginning.”
“To the degree I could, I shared stuff with Johnson, like drafts for his com-
ment, but I held back on some things I knew the navy would object to,” re-
called Crackel. “I don’t think it was ever blatant. I don’t think I ever charged
Johnson with it, but it was my assumption that he was feeding stuff back to
the navy.”41
Johnson was sent to the think tank because “Lehman was very upset with
Heritage. They had sent papers over to Capitol Hill that had, in Lehman’s view,
cost the navy  percent of its budget. Heritage was questioning the defense
budget, especially John Lehman’s six-hundred-ship navy.” Johnson said, “I was
sent to help educate Heritage on naval requirements, sea power, the defense
budget, and the need for a strong navy.” Johnson seemed well suited for this
task. He had come to Lehman’s attention after coauthoring the “Maritime
Strategy,” a controversial new scheme for how the navy would fight the Soviet
Union. Johnson’s instructions were “to keep close to what Heritage is doing”
and “please help them understand some of the nuances of what they are
writing. I wasn’t invited into the heart of the Crackel’s project because folks
probably thought I was a ‘white rat’ for Lehman.” Johnson spent half his time
at Heritage and half in the Pentagon, where he could keep the navy informed
of activities at Heritage and provide available papers.
Through Johnson and others, the navy obtained copies of Crackel’s pa-
pers—even, on occasion, his rough drafts. One draft that reached Lehman’s
desk had the following note from one of his military assistants: “Seth [Cropsey]
brought this by—it [is] from proposed Heritage report. You need to call R. V. A.
[Richard V. Allen] Tuesday.”42
Crackel planned to publish ten papers, which Heritage called “back-
grounders,” on various reform topics. In December, , Heritage published
the first, entitled “Reforming ‘Military Reform.’” Written by Crackel, it addressed
the potential of reform to “revitalize U.S. defense.” In it he said, “‘Military re-
form’ may prove one of the most powerful sets of ideas of our time.”43
Lehman did not like this backgrounder. He wrote to Dick Allen: “What
garbage! Here we go again playing ‘let’s shoot ourselves in the foot’ except that
now it is a presidential election year.” Lehman and Allen had been close since
the Nixon administration’s beginning in  when Lehman started his Wash-
ington career at the NSC as Allen’s junior staff member. Allen later helped
Lehman secure his appointment as Navy secretary.44
Unaware of Lehman’s attempt to intervene, Crackel focused his second

backgrounder on JCS reorganization. The paper labeled joint planning and strat-
egy making “wholly inadequate” and military advice of “little utility.” Crackel
recommended “dissolving” the JCS, designating the JCS chairman as the chief
of the Joint Staff, assigning him the duties performed by the JCS, and giving
him a four-star deputy. He also recommended giving “serious consideration”
to “the elimination of all or part of the service secretariats.”45
When he wrote this provocative paper, Crackel “knew it was going to be
terribly controversial [and] would ruffle feathers.” Warned of this controversy
by Crackel, Burton Pines, Heritage’s vice president for research, told Crackel to
send the paper to “some key people for their comments.” Among others, Arch
Barrett on the HASC staff and I received copies. Crackel’s letter to me advised
that Heritage would release the backgrounder in two or three days and said it
had been sent “for your information—and for any advice or counsel you would
care to offer.” He added: “The piece will be controversial. It goes somewhat be-
yond what the conventional wisdom says is politically possible. The purpose, of
course, is to push the debate forward—and to raise issues that seem difficult for
others to raise.”46 Crackel’s paper impressed me, but Tower’s antireorganization
stance made it impossible for me to provide any advice or counsel.
When Crackel gave a copy of the backgrounder to Johnson, saying “It went
to the print shop yesterday,” Johnson reported the imminent release to Rear
Adm. Paul David Miller, Lehman’s senior military assistant. Miller responded,
“We’ll take it from here.” Johnson gathered from the call that “Lehman had
some sense of urgency that this paper had to be nipped in the bud.”47
Heritage postponed releasing the JCS reorganization paper while others
completed their review. It was on hold for more than two weeks. Crackel “be-
gan to hear rumors that Lehman, who was traveling, was trying to contact
Feulner about the backgrounder.” This possibility worried Crackel; Lehman and
Feulner had been close friends for many years.
On April , after lunch with Lehman, Feulner distributed a memoran-
dum: “Hold the JCS reorganization paper in the Defense Assessment Project
until we have a chance to discuss it in detail. There are a number of sensitive
areas that we must discuss before proceeding with it.” Essentially, Feulner had
killed the backgrounder Crackel considered “presenting the central theme of
the whole project.” Crackel was told, “We’re not going to publish it. It’s too
controversial. The timing is not right.”48
Like Crackel, Pines, chief of Heritage’s publication program, “reacted
strongly” to Lehman’s pressuring Feulner to kill the JCS reorganization paper.
Pines became “even more insistent that the reorganization message get out.”
Word of Lehman’s success in suppressing the Heritage paper spread quickly
on Capitol Hill. The squashing of this report was a setback, but reformers wor-
ried more about the loss of Heritage’s support for reorganization. This incident
reminded my Senate colleagues and me of the services’ power, especially the

navy and its secretary.
Heritage eventually published Crackel’s reorganization ideas. At Pines’s
urging, the project’s report was summarized in the second edition of Heritage’s
flagship product: Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolu-
tion, released on December , . Written by Crackel, the chapter addressed
the full range of reorganization issues and “criticized Weinberger’s marginal
changes as insufficient.”49
Crackel’s chapter said DoD organization “sanctions and perpetuates insti-
tutionalized parochialisms.” He added that “Service parochialism is as ubiqui-
tous as it is legendary, and the services, which the [Joint] Chiefs individually
represent, cooperate only grudgingly.” Crackel’s most forceful fixes centered
on the JCS chairman, whom he would strengthen and provide a four-star deputy.
He proposed that the chairman “be authorized to give military advice in his
own right” and endorsed roles for the chairman that had appeared in House
legislation: supervisor and spokesman for the unified commanders, a member
of the chain of command, and sole manager of the Joint Staff. He added two
new, controversial ideas: he would empower the chairman to select officers for
all joint billets and recommend their promotions.
Also controversial, Crackel proposed assigning the chairman responsibil-
ity for the allocation of roles and missions among the services. He also pro-
posed shifting the defense budget’s focus from service aspirations to warfighting
needs, recommending that programming and budgeting be “guided by require-
ments . . . identified by the combatant commands.”50
Barrett praised the Defense Assessment chapter in a letter to Crackel. “The
substance goes further than anything I could have anticipated and, as you know,
I agree with most of it wholeheartedly.” Barrett disagreed with placing “Heri-
tage on record as favoring what amounts to a general staff,” but admired its
inclusion as a demonstration of “the breadth of your tour de force.” Barrett
thought the article was better than any other in giving “an excellent overview
of the existing problems . . . and the opportunities for realignment.”51
Secretary Lehman had delayed but not stopped Heritage’s publication of
proreform ideas. His intervention made the Heritage Foundation appear unreli-
able on reform, unable to withstand Pentagon pressure. Yet, its strongly
proreform report gave some conservative members a rationale for ignoring navy
lobbying.52
On October , , in a meeting with Secretary Weinberger and Deputy Sec-
retary Frank Carlucci, Lt. Gen. John S. Pustay, USAF, president of the National
Defense University (NDU), proposed that NDU conduct two reorganization con-
ferences in March and April, . The first would feature scholars providing
“historical and contemporary perspectives on military centralization,” princi-
pally the experiences of other countries. Former Pentagon practitioners would

present papers on key organizational issues at the second conference.53
Vincent Davis and Robert J. Art, two NDU consultants who had partici-
pated in the meeting, viewed reorganization as “an important issue.”54 Davis
taught at the University of Kentucky and served as director of its Patterson
School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. He had piloted carrier air-
craft during the Korean War and retired as a captain after thirty-four years in
the Naval Reserve. Davis’s two books on the postwar navy gave him strong cre-
dentials on defense organization. Art, a professor and graduate dean at Brandeis
University, had studied and written on the congressional budget process and
its impact on the Pentagon.
When it appeared that the Pentagon and NDU were not going to conduct
the conferences, Art, Davis, and Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington,
author of a classic book entitled The Soldier and the State, undertook the project
on their own. All three belonged to the proreform camp. The Ford Founda-
tion granted funds for their project, which Harvard and Kentucky would
jointly administer. Harvard hosted the first conference in November, , and
Kentucky, the second less than a month later. Each session had about forty-five
attendees, representing the ideological spectrum.
Bruce Porter and I from the SASC staff attended both conferences. Because
the conferences were held in the midst of Senator Tower’s reorganization in-
quiry hearings, many of the papers presented became valuable sources of in-
formation and ideas.
Art, Davis, and Huntington edited a book that included twenty conference
articles. In the introduction, Art wrote: “The other nations analyzed in this vol-
ume—the Soviet Union, Israel, Great Britain, Canada, and the Federal Republic
of Germany—have proceeded further in integrating their separate military ser-
vices than has the United States. Each has forces more subject to central direc-
tion than does the United States, with an apparent increase in efficiency.” Hun-
tington said the project’s major contribution, something that “really opened
my eyes,” was this comparison of the U.S. and foreign military establishments.
“Our defense organization was so far removed from the types of organizations
that others had. Ours was so pluralistic and decentralized.”55
Unlike CSIS and Heritage publications, the Harvard-Kentucky book did not
offer conclusions or recommendations. One commentator termed the book “aca-
demically the most respectable of the outside studies,” but believed its influence
was limited to helping to “place the debate in its international and historical
context.”56
In late , Navy Secretary Lehman decided that the antireform camp needed
its own academic and think-tank activities. He and J. D. Hittle, his reorganiza-
tion watchdog, began forming a group to rebut proposed reforms. Just as most
proreformers had done, Lehman and Hittle recruited only those who supported
their view. They enlisted participation of a general or flag officer from each
service: Lyman Lemnitzer from the army, Jim Holloway from the navy, John W.
Vogt from the air force, and Louis Wilson from the Marine Corps. All but Vogt
had served as service chiefs, and Lemnitzer had also been JCS chairman.
Lehman personally recruited Vogt. He and Hittle added three other anti-
reformers with varied congressional, veterans, and business connections.57
The Hudson Institute was chosen as the group’s sponsor. Futurist Herman
Kahn founded the Hudson Institute in a New York City suburb in . Kahn
epitomized the “popular stereotype of the think-tank ‘type.’” One author de-
scribed his role: “Kahn’s full beard, capacious girth, and restless intellect typi-
fied the popular image of the think-tank intellectual—the crackpot genius,
absent-minded misfit, and Strangelovian strategist.” Following Kahn’s 
death, the deeply in debt institute moved to Indianapolis, where a consortium
of business and foundation executives had offered significant financial support.58
Also in , Lehman awarded Hudson the contract to manage the Wash-
ington-based Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), replacing the University of Roch-
ester, which had managed the center for many years. Because CNA’s studies
were challenging many of his policies and programs, “the institution had be-
come a thorn in Lehman’s side.” In a highly controversial move, he decided to
fire CNA president David Kassing. When Rochester told Lehman he lacked the
authority to fire Kassing, the navy responded by putting CNA’s contract out for
bid and selected Hudson.59
As a result of this timely windfall, Hudson looked favorably upon navy
causes. President Thomas D. Bell Jr. began speaking out against reorganiza-
tion. In an opinion piece appearing in the New York Times in March, , he
termed JCS reorganization “generally esoteric, uninformed by history and very
trendy.” Bell maintained that “The existing system works and has long stood
us in good stead.”60
The Hudson study group, calling itself the Committee on Civilian-Military
Relationships, issued its report, An Analysis of Proposed Joint Chiefs of Staff Re-
organization, on September , . The executive summary began: “In this
report an eminently qualified group of Americans argues against proposed
statutory changes in the structure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lest well-meaning
‘reforms’ leave the United States exposed to provincial Prussian-style military
leadership. But . . . the group attacks decades of ‘chronic inflation’ in the Office
of [the] Secretary of Defense [and] urges a twenty percent reduction in the
OSD civilian-military bureaucracy.”61
David O. “Doc” Cooke, Weinberger’s deputy assistant secretary for adminis-
tration, blasted the report as “lacking in analysis. Ninety percent of the contents
are little more than ‘cut and paste.’” He also thought the report was too ori-
ented toward military experience: “None of the membership of the reporting
committee have had working experience as a civilian in OSD or the NSC. . . . the
report lacks a balanced perspective.”62 The report’s lack of scholarship would
have appalled Herman Kahn.
In a memorandum for Adm. James D. Watkins, Capt. Jake W. Stewart, ex-
ecutive director of the CNO Executive Panel—an internal think tank—attacked
the Hudson report as “an unabashed piece of advocacy” and “more appropriate
to the soapbox than to a ‘detailed’ study.” To make his point, Stewart cited the
following passage: “Never do proponents of a national general staff admit that
their proposed system has flourished only when its roots sink deeply into the
poisoned soil of militarism, dictatorship, and anti-democratic beliefs.”63
Stewart recommended that Watkins “avoid participation in the current
debate by slogan, but also that you consider the merits of redirecting the de-
bate toward a higher caliber, more imaginative and less starkly framed level of
discourse. . . . JCS/Defense reform need not be a zero-sum game.” In light of the
completion of the  defense authorization conference, Watkins responded,
“Issue resolved—at least for now.” Reacting to the toughness of Stewart’s mes-
sage, the admiral decreed, “‘Cool it!’”
In a letter to the editor of Defense Week, former Under Secretary of Defense
Robert W. Komer described the Hudson report as a “one-sided and feeble . . .
justification of the status quo.” He called its recommendation to reduce OSD “a
feature of the U.S. Navy’s longstanding campaign against any defense organi-
zation measure which would reduce its prized autonomy.”64
Not everyone saw the report as an embarrassment. Rear Adm. John M.
Poindexter, the deputy national security adviser forwarded the report to his
boss, Robert C. “Bud” McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser, calling it
“an interesting and timely study.” Poindexter was “convinced that the correct
model for JCS is corporate one. Due to the vagaries of the selection process [for
JCS chairman] the United States needs insurance to guard against a bad selec-
tion.” Eleven months after its release and despite Cooke’s criticisms, Weinberger
was still drawing the Hudson report to the attention of those outside the Pen-
tagon who were studying reorganization.65
Shortly after the Hudson report’s release, Admiral Watkins convened a select
panel to review JCS reorganization proposals so he could “be prepared to take a
balanced and thoughtful position.”66 Four retired officers and one on active
duty comprised the CNO Select Panel. Admiral Bob Long served as chairman.
The other members were Adm. Bobby R. Inman, Vice Adm. Frank W. Vannoy,
Rear Adm. Samuel H. Packer, and Brigadier General Hittle.
When the panel completed its report on March , , Watkins noted
“the similarity between the views of the select panel and those provided by the
secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, service secretaries
and service chiefs.” The panel opposed “any structural or procedural change
in the Joint Chiefs of Staff that would modify or otherwise infringe upon the
statutory responsibilities of the corporate Joint Chiefs of Staff.” It recommended
against designating the chairman as the principal military adviser, subordi-
nating the Joint Staff solely to him, and providing him a deputy. The panel also
opposed the administration’s proposals to put the chairman in the chain of
command and make him an NSC member.67
The CNO Select Panel supported strengthening the role of unified command-
ers, particularly on resource issues and readiness and sustainability matters,
and stressed the need for the JCS to develop “a more comprehensive and coher-
ent national military strategy.” It recommended assigning more talented offic-
ers to joint billets and urged that the CNO “take an active role in overcoming the
perception widely held by naval officers that joint duty is less rewarding.”
Although the panel’s report was intended to provide advice only to Watkins,
the navy belatedly brought the work to attention of others, principally mem-
bers of Congress.
Seth Cropsey arranged one last navy foray into the academic world: a “JCS Re-
form” conference hosted by the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island,
in May, . Inviting the college’s president to sponsor this event, Cropsey said
it would be “a genuine service [and] not only to the Navy which has long un-
derstood the problems of an overzealous centralization of military authority.”68
The conference attracted sixty participants, including Arch Barrett and Francis
J. “Frank” Sullivan, who worked for Senator Stennis as the minority staff direc-
tor of the Appropriations Committee. Most of the other Senate staffers plan-
ning to participate in the Friday-Saturday conference, including Rick Finn and
me, were detained in Washington by Senate business.
The conference, like the Harvard-Kentucky project, focused its two parts
on JCS reform proposals and organizational lessons from other countries. All
speakers on JCS issues argued against reform except Gen. Bruce Palmer Jr., a
retired former army vice chief and deputy commander of U.S. forces in Viet-
nam. Given this lineup, a staffer from Cong. Ike Skelton’s office “complained
that the conference was not sufficiently ‘balanced.’”69
Robert J. Murray, a former navy under secretary, defended the status quo.
The first of his three arguments centered on history. “The JCS system has taken
us successfully through the most dangerous war [World War II] in our national
life, and has subsequently carried us safely through four decades of the post-
war nuclear era.” His second argument lauded diversity of advice. “The present
JCS enables . . . diverse military points of view to come forward.” Murray’s last
point was that the existing system “has the important advantage of fitting both
the letter and spirit of the Constitution.” He cited the Founding Fathers’ deci-
sion to distribute power widely, implying that they would be against proposals
to strengthen the JCS chairman.70
Admiral Jim Holloway argued that the JCS system was not “paralyzed by
the burden of service self-interest.” He praised JCS advice on military opera-
tions while admitting that more deliberative advice “has not always been as
precise, comprehensive, or as prompt as desired.” The admiral criticized the
CSIS report, saying its proposals to strengthen the JCS chairman “are com-
pletely contrary to the basic philosophy of our national military command
structure.”
David K. Hall, a Naval War College professor, pegged his antireform pre-
sentation on the belief that the quality of military advice and decisions “will
continue to turn on technical expertise and interpersonal relations, not formal
authority and organization charts.”
A fourth antireformer, Jeffrey G. Barlow of the National Institute for Pub-
lic Policy, argued that the “search for perfectibility . . . is simply not obtainable
through defense reorganization.” He judged that moving away from the corpo-
rate JCS system “will only add strategic inflexibilities and will further narrow
the range of alternatives presented to civilian superiors.”
Cropsey elatedly reported on the conference to Lehman: The quality of the
papers and discussion was “quite excellent,” “forceful, convincing,” and “well-
reasoned and equally persuasive.”71 Cropsey recommended that the Naval War
College “publish a readable, shortened pamphlet of the best papers.” Lehman
agreed and provided the funding.
By volume of intellectual firepower, proreform academic forces overwhelmed

the antireform forces. However, their mutual objective was not to defeat each
other, but to influence decision makers in the Reagan administration and on
Capitol Hill—two arenas where proreform scholars should have held the upper
hand. The breadth and stature of their participants and endorsements, depth
of their research, rigor of their scholarship, and volume of their books, reports,
and articles were impressive. They were about to discover, however, that in an
area as arcane and emotional as defense reorganization, the linking of knowl-
edge and power was more problematic.
Nichols Runs Tower’s Blockade 181
CHAPTER 9
Nichols Runs
Tower’s Blockade
Reformers have the idea that change
can be achieved by brute sanity.
—George Bernard Shaw
“I s the Senate going to do anything?” Cong. Bill Nichols asked in his Alabama
drawl.1
“Senator Tower’s staff director, Jim McGovern, said, ‘Yes, the Senate will
respond to your bill,’” staffer Arch Barrett responded.
“There’s no excuse for the Senate not to be doing something this time,”
Nichols reasoned. “In , the House sent the Joint Chiefs of Staff bill to the
Senate during the second session. This time, we moved the bill during the first
session.”
The Investigations Subcommittee chairman was worried because the
House’s JCS reorganization bill was freestanding, not part of the defense au-
thorization bill. If the Senate did not act, the JCS bill would die when the ses-
sion adjourned at the end of .
Nichols’s early  fretting about prospects for enacting JCS reforms re-
flected his recent concerns about the intentions of John Tower, chairman of
the Senate Armed Services Committee. When Tower announced his committee’s
reorganization inquiry, the Senate seemed to become a partner in the reform
crusade. The SASC’s failure to produce legislation in  did not trouble
Nichols. Reorganization was a complex subject; it would take time for the Sen-
ate to formulate its ideas. But when no SASC activity was discernible in early
, Nichols became concerned.
Barrett’s encouraging report led Nichols to accept Tower’s and McGovern’s

promises.
Before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees began their 
work, two more naval embarrassments occurred in Lebanon. On February ,
in support of the Beirut marines, an A aircraft from the carrier Kennedy
dropped two laser-guided bombs on gun positions firing at the leathernecks.
The mission involved “two of the Navy’s most skillful fliers flying the Navy’s
smartest bomber loaded with its smartest bombs against [an undefended] sta-
tionary target.” Nevertheless, the bombs missed their target by more than a
mile, hitting an apartment building and setting it on fire.2
Two days later, the World War II battleship New Jersey and another ship
launched the largest naval gunfire barrage since Vietnam. The New Jersey’s nine
-inch guns fired shells that weighed as much as a Volkswagen, traveled al-
most eighteen miles, and created a fifty-foot-wide and twenty-foot-deep crater.
In one morning, the New Jersey fired  Volkswagens into Lebanon, and the
other ship unleashed  -inch rounds.
The day before, Navy Secretary Lehman testified to the HASC that -
inch gunfire is “very accurate” and “great care is taken not to fire into civilian
areas.” But soon after the barrage, “administration officials” in Washington
admitted “virtually all of the more than  huge shells fired at Druse and
Syrian positions in Lebanon . . . missed their targets by very large distances
and had little or no military or political impact.” Poor accuracy resulted
because “the Navy had no spotters, either on the ground or in airplanes above
the target areas, who could [report] where the shells were dropping and how
to readjust the aiming.” Without a forward spotter, the New Jersey’s -inch
rounds were “likely to land within , feet of their targets only fifty percent
of the time.”3
Poor gunfire results in Lebanon appear to have been the rule, not the ex-
ception. Facts suggest that “the firing from naval ships never destroyed a single
military target.” Lower-ranking naval officials conceded that naval gunfire had
only “put big holes in mountainsides,” killed civilians, and damaged property.
Even the Druze militia, the gunfire’s frequent targets, did not fear the barrages
because “they never hit anything.” According to one Druze commander, “Had
they actually hit something, things might have been different.”4
As with other failings, the embarrassing gunfire performance off Lebanon
resulted because “the application of basic military technique was so poor.”5
Although Tower and McGovern wished reorganization would disappear, the

genie was too big to get back in the bottle. After a major public announcement
of the inquiry, twelve hearings, work on a staff report, and heavy involvement
of committee and senators’ staffs, the issue was too visible to vanish. At the
beginning of , Tower and McGovern concocted a plausible reason for in-
activity on reorganization: the unexpectedly heavy workload of other defense
issues. The growing resistance in the Senate to the Reagan defense buildup and
controversial weapon programs lent credence to this excuse.
But the staff study chugged along. Tower and McGovern could not easily
concoct a reason to curtail it. Moreover, by the time they decided to apply the
brakes, many staffers had become involved, and some were convinced of the
need for reform. Interest in Pentagon problems was high.
McGovern implemented a three-pronged approach to negate the study. The
first prong would strictly limit the number of staffers who had access to the
study and prohibit anyone outside of the committee from seeing it. It was
guarded more closely than a TOP SECRET document. McGovern apparently
figured if no one knew what the study said, it could not do much damage.
McGovern’s second prong sought to slow work on the study by piling other
work on key participants. I was a central target of this approach. Fortunately, I
had three talented research assistants working for me—Rick Finn, Drew A.
Harker, and Judith A. Freedman—each of whom was anxious to assume in-
creased responsibilities. Whatever extra work McGovern sent in my direction, I
assigned to Finn, Harker, or Freedman with instructions to keep my desk free
of McGovern’s “make work” projects if at all possible.
On February , I wrote to McGovern: “Our DoD Organization Project is
really struggling. Given all of the other work, I have not been able to devote the
necessary time to redraft the OSD section; others are equally burdened. Some-
how, we need to attempt to minimize lower priority work.”6 This report must
have pleased McGovern.
Throughout , I kept working on the staff report. Other staffers contin-
ued to contribute as well. The pace of research and writing was slowed, but
work continued.
McGovern’s third prong envisioned altering the study’s proreform direc-
tion. He asked me for a copy for his review and comment, and then surrepti-
tiously sent it to the navy for a detailed scrub. The marine officer who carried it
to the Pentagon called me within moments of its delivery, saying, “You know
that staff study that is being held so closely that no one can get a peek at it—
well, I just delivered a copy from Jim McGovern to Secretary Lehman’s office.”
I could not reveal this confidence, so I waited for McGovern’s next move.
About two weeks later, McGovern sent me a twenty-page paper with de-
tailed changes he wanted made. The paper reflected typical Pentagon style with
the changes noted in a line-in/line-out format. The pages had been numbered
by a special Pentagon machine.
When I gathered staffers to review McGovern’s comments, the group ex-
pressed a collective view: “What a charade. McGovern is trying to pass the navy’s
comments off as his own.” We decided to resist.
I directly confronted McGovern: “These changes came from the Pentagon.”

“This is my work,” he replied. “I want these changes made in the staff study.”
“The majority of staffers will not agree to these changes,” I countered. “We
need to have a meeting of all staff from the committee and members’ offices who
are working on the study to hear from you why these changes should be made.”
I knew this would be too much visibility for McGovern. He was not knowl-
edgeable enough to debate reorganization issues. He declined the offer and the
impasse continued.
When I went on a two-day trip on other committee business, McGovern
instructed my secretary, Barbara B. Brown, to type his changes into the study
master.7 Upon my return I became infuriated when I discovered what McGovern
had done and had the offending comments removed. Considerable effort had to
be expended to reconstruct the study. Guerrilla warfare over the study and
McGovern’s comments continued for months.
When his three-pronged approach didn’t cripple the study, McGovern de-
veloped a fourth prong: Tower would ask one or more outside panels, each with
five to seven members, to review it. On May , Tower told Reagan’s national
security adviser, Bud McFarlane, that the panels would “critique our staff re-
port and offer legislative and administrative solutions to the committee in the
fall.”8 My reorganization colleagues and I feared that Tower and McGovern
would stack the panel with antireformers. Fortunately, other demands on the
committee precluded implementing this idea.
Under pressure from Nunn, Tower finally released a copy of the study to
each SASC member on May . His cover letter stated: “I have not yet had a
chance to read the report, therefore, it may not reflect my views or those of
other committee members. Because this could be a very sensitive issue—
particularly in an election year—I ask that you treat this as an ‘eyes only’
document.” Despite Tower’s plea, copies were soon circulating in the Penta-
gon. Senator Dan Quayle’s office had provided one of the copies.9
By the middle of May, when Tower had made no move to fulfill his promises,
Nichols determined that he would have to force Tower’s hand by adding H.R.
, the reorganization bill passed by the House in October, , as an amend-
ment to the legislation authorizing the Pentagon’s budget. This move would
require a Senate-House conference committee—formed to settle differences in
the two bills—to address JCS reform.
When the Pentagon learned of Nichols’s plans, its general counsel,
Chapman B. Cox, wrote to HASC chairman Mel Price to express “grave reser-
vations” about the substance of Nichols’s amendment. Cox, asking Price to
withdraw Nichols’s amendment, argued against attaching “such important
and substantial legislation to the DoD Authorization Act and thus overburden
an already important piece of legislation.”10
Price rejected the Pentagon’s request and instead on May  offered

Nichols’s amendment in a block of eleven “noncontroversial” provisions. Con-
gressman Charles Bennett—the second-ranking HASC Democrat and a strong
navy supporter—spoke against Nichols’s amendment. He noted that H.R. 
would make “real changes” in JCS organization, “which are very much op-
posed by the Department of Defense.” Bennett did not seek to defeat the amend-
ment, believing that Pentagon objections “can be considered and handled in
conference between the House and Senate.”11 The House accepted the block of
amendments and passed the bill on June .
Three days later, Tower met with Secretary Weinberger to prepare for
Senate consideration of the SASC’s version of the authorization bill. Tower’s
point paper listed three subjects for the meeting: MX missile funding, seven
possible controversial amendments, and defense organization. Reforming the
JCS was identified as one of the controversial amendments that could be
offered on the Senate floor. Tower said he might “need DoD to develop ‘fallback’
options in the event we need them” should amendments be offered in these
areas.12
Tower suggested that Weinberger and the president “should decide whether
it would be politically advantageous for you to embrace the concept of reorga-
nizing the Department of Defense to neutralize the animus that presently ex-
ists between the Congress/media and the Department of Defense.” Tower was
on the hot seat, squeezed between the administration and reform-minded HASC.
He hoped in vain that the administration would lift this burden.
Senator Sam Nunn was also thinking about how to handle the House’s
JCS reforms. His thoughts were much more positive than Tower’s, although he
saw two major flaws in the House’s reforms: making the JCS chairman a statu-
tory member of the NSC and inserting him in the chain of command. Nunn
judged that “both proposals undermine the authority of the secretary of de-
fense and should be deleted.”13
Nunn suggested to Tower that they had two options. The first was to “stone-
wall” in the hope “that the House will recede in exchange for a promise from us
to take up their bill promptly.” However, Nunn realized that this option left the
Senate little leverage in the conference committee if the House was “adamant.”
He also believed the “House might not buy our pledge to take up the bill” since
the Senate already had a full legislative calendar. Barrett was concurrently ad-
vising Nichols to reject a Senate promise to take up the House bill separately,
doubting that “with the best good will and good faith in the world, Senator
Tower could deliver on this.”14
Nunn’s second option involved introducing a Tower-Nunn amendment on
JCS reorganization during Senate consideration of the defense authorization
bill. Having “now read the excellent study done by the committee staff,” Nunn
told Tower he was ready to discuss the contents of a possible amendment.15
Tower liked the first option. He had no interest in adding JCS reforms to the
Senate bill.
On June , , during floor action on the defense authorization bill,
Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton (D-Missouri) offered a reorganization amendment that
would replace the JCS with a chief of military staff and a National Military
Advisory Council. Eagleton’s amendment was similar to the bill submitted by
his fellow Missouri Democrat, Cong. Ike Skelton.16
In response, Tower announced his “intention,” in late July, “to convince
the Armed Services Committee to consider legislation that would effect some
fairly comprehensive reform.” Tower said this approach would depend on com-
pleting the conference report on the authorization bill prior to the July  recess
and asked Eagleton to await the results of the SASC’s work before pressing his
proposal.17
Offering a rare public glimpse of his thinking, Tower said, “While I agree
with some of the observations of the Senator from Missouri, I do have some
concerns with his proposal.” He repeated the Pentagon’s argument “that a great
deal of power would actually be divested of the secretary of defense and, I think,
would tend to militate against our tradition of civilian control of the military.”
Nunn pressed Tower to make DoD reorganization “the top item for our com-
mittee during July.”
Tower agreed. “That will be our priority effort then,” he said.
“I do not know of anything more important, frankly, that we face in the
whole defense arena,” Nunn replied.18
Senator Barry Goldwater joined the debate, saying that Eagleton had tar-
geted the conflict of interest “problem that has prevailed in the Joint Chiefs
almost since its inception” and noting his interest in reorganization since statu-
tory establishment of the JCS in . “I do not know whether Senator Nunn
will be chairman of the Armed Services Committee next year or whether I will
be,” he said, “but I think I am perfectly safe in saying that, whether he is chair-
man or I am chairman, this is a subject that is going to receive very deep study
and, it is hoped, some resolution, so that our military services not only can
perform better in military decisions, but also, just as important to me, perform
better in procurement.”
With these commitments, Eagleton withdrew his amendment.19
For almost a year, Tower had adroitly found reasons to put off JCS reorganiza-
tion without having to declare his opposition. Jeffrey H. Smith, Nunn’s staffer
working on JCS reform, recalled: “I don’t remember Tower personally express-
ing any opposition to reform in any meeting I ever attended. But, clearly, every-
body knew Tower was against it; McGovern was against it; the navy was against
it. This roadblock was going to make reform impossible.”20
Rhett Dawson explained Tower’s opposition: “As the Pentagon’s spear car-
rier on the Hill, his job was to kill reorganization. Tower also had a disdainful
view of the HASC work, seeing it as not well conceived and lacking a broad
base of support. Importantly, the legislation would strike at Tower’s uniformed
constituencies, especially the navy and Marine Corps. In combination, these
three factors exponentially increased his resistance. Moreover, Tower didn’t see
much upside to reorganization. During much of his career, he was not regarded
as a reformer and was not adaptive to change. In addition, Tower was not close
to any reform proponents.”21
Tower’s chairmanship of the House-Senate conference on the defense au-
thorization bill enhanced his ability to defeat the JCS provisions. The chairman-
ship alternated between SASC and HASC chairmen for each major conference.
The conference chairman decides the agenda for sessions, schedules issues for
consideration, and leads the conference’s reconciliation of differences in the Sen-
ate and House bills. In , the two bills contained twelve hundred differences.
Two factors would magnify Tower’s control as conference chairman. First,
his extraordinary negotiating and parliamentary skills would enable him to
exercise the chairman’s full powers. Second, Tower’s counterpart, seventy-nine-
year-old HASC chairman Mel Price, was frail and “growing increasingly feeble.”
Because of his colleagues’ great “respect and affection” for Price—the second
most senior House member—most overlooked his “infirmities” and “diminished
capabilities.” One member bluntly stated the truth: “Mel drifts in and out.”22
Even on his best days, Price was no match for Tower.
Their chairmen’s skills represented only one of many differences between
the two committees. The SASC also contained several nationally known fig-
ures: Tower, Strom Thurmond, Goldwater, Nunn, John Stennis, Gary Hart, and
Ted Kennedy. Few outside of Washington knew the names of the HASC mem-
bers, who were described as representing the viewpoint of the average working
man.23 The two committees even looked different. The Senate side dressed in
fine business suits with Tower always wearing an expensive three-piece British
suit. The House side predominantly wore sports coats, with plaid being the most
popular.
Traditionally, the hawkish, prodefense HASC was more unified than its Sen-
ate counterpart. The like-minded congressmen believed “that partisan politi-
cal considerations take a back seat to national security issues.” Republican
member Jim Courter described private HASC sessions as “miraculously devoid”
of partisan politics. Nichols said partisanship “just doesn’t raise its head, and it
shouldn’t when you are talking about the defense of the country.” The
committee’s bipartisan approach permitted it to have only one staff, “its most
striking characteristic.”24 All other House and Senate committees had two staffs:
one to serve majority party members and the other for minority members.
Tower would have difficulty cracking HASC unity. As a powerful chairman
adept at playing hardball, he kept a tight rein on his committee, especially the
Republicans, and was certain to retain sufficient SASC votes to support his op-
position to JCS reforms. Nunn’s support for reform would complicate, but not
seriously challenge, Tower’s maneuvers. Understanding that “Tower basically
didn’t want anything to happen,” Nunn focused his efforts on “using the House
position as leverage to get something done, vis-à-vis Tower.”25
To expedite its work, the conference committee organized a panel for each
block of issues, such as strategic forces and manpower. These panels met infor-
mally and prepared recommendations for the committee. Before a panel met,
staff discussions identified common ground and initiated resolution. Some is-
sues were not assigned to a panel but were negotiated by the chairmen or un-
der their supervision. Tower decided to handle JCS reform in that manner. He
and Nichols would negotiate these issues. As the SASC’s senior reorganization
staffer, I expected to handle staff discussions and support Tower’s negotiations.
Before the first conference session on June , McGovern asked to meet
with me. He shocked me by saying: “Senator Tower has asked me to work the
JCS issues for him. You’re too proreform. I will handle the discussions with Arch
Barrett. Rick Finn will assist me as needed. You will not be involved, and that’s
an order.” I protested that this exclusion was inconsistent with my assigned
responsibilities. The staff director harshly instructed me that Tower had already
made his decision on staff support and that McGovern would not tolerate any
interference from me. He gave me one final instruction: “I don’t want you talk-
ing to Arch Barrett about this subject.”
Putting McGovern in charge of JCS reform signaled my staff colleagues
and me that Tower was committed to defeating Nichols’s provisions. Tower’s
and McGovern’s tactics centered on delaying consideration of the reorganiza-
tion provisions. On the conference’s first day, a Friday, Tower indicated that JCS
reform would be addressed the following Wednesday, June . During that first
week, McGovern refused to negotiate, saying he was not authorized to do so.
This brought objections from the House staff director, Kim Wincup, and Barrett
and forced Price to seek Tower’s consent to staff discussions at the June  con-
ference meeting. “If we do not start to confer we can hardly expect to finish,”
Nichols observed.26
Delaying consideration of JCS issues proved to be a major challenge for
Tower and McGovern. Normally, a conference would last two to three weeks.
This one lasted three months. Two unresolved major issues—the defense
budget’s size and the MX missile program—precluded progress. The White
House and congressional leadership would have to resolve those issues. Fail-
ure to complete the conference before the July recess relieved Tower of his Sen-
ate floor commitment to have the SASC consider a reorganization bill in July.
The conference met five times in June, three in July, and then did not meet
again for almost two months. Throughout that period, no member or staff ne-
gotiations were held on JCS reform.
Nichols and Barrett were kept busy defending the House bill from anti-
reform attacks. In a commentary entitled “Let’s Stop Trying to Be Prussians”
appearing on June  in the Washington Post, Navy Secretary Lehman fired a
broadside at the bill, saying it would create “a Prussian-style general staff.”
Lehman claimed that “a coalition of civilian arm-chair strategists, who don’t
really understand the Pentagon bureaucracy, and uniformed military staff offic-
ers, who understand it all too well” instigated the reforms.27
Lehman focused his attack on the same two provisions that troubled Nunn:
having the JCS chairman serve as an NSC member and in the chain of com-
mand. He blasted the chain of command provision, saying it “violates every
sound military axiom.” Strangely, his criticisms focused on the central feature
of the administration’s proposal—to which Reagan, Weinberger, Vessey, and
all the service chiefs had subscribed.
Despite shared objections, Senate reformers found Lehman’s arguments
erroneous. The secretary argued that the bill “called for more power to Wash-
ington staff officers and for severely diminished authority for field command-
ers and civilian leaders.” He said the bill “subverts” two American military
principles: civilian control and command responsibility. However, Lehman
missed the mark because power was already overly concentrated in Washing-
ton staff officers: not the chairman and Joint Staff, but those in the service head-
quarters. That concentration undermined civilian control by the defense sec-
retary and command responsibility of the unified commanders. But in the
arcane world of defense organization, Lehman’s slick arguments were not easy
to refute.
In early July, an unsigned, undated letter attacking the House bill was sent
to defense associations in Washington. It said the bill would elevate the chair-
man to “a supreme military commander,” create “a Prussian-type national
general staff,” and “adopt the system that helped Germany lose World War II.”
The letter, repeating claims from the postwar unification fight, issued a five-
bell alarm: “The proposed system means the end of naval aviation and, also,
the Marine Corps.” The Fleet Reserve Association provided a copy to Nichols
and Barrett, who were troubled by the letter’s “gross distortions.”28
On July , the Association of Naval Aviation, where Admiral Moorer
served as chairman of the board, issued the same letter to its members over the
signature of its president, Admiral Holloway. He made only one significant
change to the draft. He softened the alarm sentence to read: “This proposed
system is a very real threat to naval aviation, and also to the Marine Corps.”
Holloway advocated a grassroots campaign to defeat the “Nichols bill.” He asked
association members to contact and write letters to senators, congressman,
and local newspaper publishers and editors. The point paper he sent for use in
these endeavors said the JCS chairman would become “a separate secretary of
defense” and charged that civilian control over the military would be largely
transferred to the chairman. It warned of “eventual elimination of Navy air

and Marines.”29
Speaker of the House “Tip” O’Neill and Senate Majority Leader Howard
Baker broke the deadlock on the defense budget and MX missile on September
. The conference convened later the same day with the goal of completing its
work within days.
On Friday, September , after delaying for three months, McGovern and
Finn met with Barrett for the first time for staff negotiations on JCS reforms. As
reported by Barrett to Wincup, McGovern “began with the assertion that Sena-
tor Tower had made a major concession by virtue of merely allowing the House
and Senate staffs to negotiate.” Barrett “rejected that assertion out of hand as
a basis for any concession by the House side, pointing out that our meeting
finally consummated an agreement made by Senator Tower in the conference
last June.”30
Eighteen JCS reform issues were at stake. McGovern agreed to accept five
minor provisions: authorize the JCS chairman to serve as spokesman for the
unified commanders, relax assignment restrictions on the Joint Staff director,
increase the maximum length of Joint Staff tours from three to four years, al-
low officers to be reassigned to the Joint Staff after a two-year interval rather
than three, and require the defense secretary to ensure that service personnel
policies give appropriate consideration to Joint Staff duty. Only the last provi-
sion was not contained in the administration’s proposal or supported by the
Pentagon. Barrett agreed to drop the provision giving service chiefs and unified
commanders the right to comment on Joint Staff papers.31 Noting that the Sen-
ate staffers had made only minor concessions, Barrett said: “What the Senate
offered is completely unacceptable.”32
Barrett told Wincup that Nichols “noted that some of the provisions that
the Senate opposes are administration proposals.” The Alabama congressman
found McGovern’s arguments to be unsupported by testimony before the HASC
or SASC. Barrett said Nichols “is unwilling to allow the secretary of the navy,
apparently without the imprimatur of either the Reagan administration or the
uniformed navy or Marine Corps or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to dictate the out-
come of this conference.” Nichols apparently believed that Lehman was in-
structing McGovern, and possibly Tower, on acceptable provisions.
Although other member and staff negotiations continued throughout the
weekend, Barrett was unable to schedule additional meetings with McGovern
and Finn. At  A.M. on Monday, September , the conference committee be-
gan a marathon session to settle all remaining differences. The meeting was
held in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s small hearing room,
S-, on the fourth, attic floor of the Capitol, just outside the upper part of the
Great Rotunda. A long table that extended nearly the length of the room was
used for conference sessions. The senators sat on one side and the congress-
men on the other, with the two chairmen across from each other in the center.
Two rows of chairs for staffers ringed the table. The overly crowded room made
it difficult to move about.
Nichols repeatedly sought to raise the JCS provisions, but Tower kept de-
flecting him, saying, “We’ll get to it.” The senator’s manipulations made JCS
reform the last remaining issue. Weary conferees turned their attention to this
contentious subject at  A.M. on Tuesday morning, after fifteen hours in ses-
sion. Tower was positioned to crush Nichols. The House conferees had great
affection for Nichols, but for most, JCS reform was not “high on their agenda.”33
If Tower showed determination, the tired conferees, anxious to finish, would
eventually abandon Nichols.
I presented nearly forty foreign policy issues to the conference just before it
considered the JCS provisions. McGovern let me remain in the room for this
last debate, but made it clear that I was not to speak.
As Nichols and Barrett anticipated, Tower began: “Everything else is done.
For God’s sake, it’s time to go home. It is particularly the wrong time to take up
a complicated issue like this.” Tower argued with great success that changes to
the JCS should not be made in isolation. The components of the Pentagon were
interconnected and should be addressed only through a comprehensive set of
reforms. This argument was so powerful because it was right. The talented and
resourceful Texan did not want any changes in the Pentagon, at least not dur-
ing his tenure, but he could use the all-or-nothing argument to his advantage.
Tower reiterated his theme: “Hey, let’s go home. This is a big issue. It’s after
midnight. We’re all tired. We shouldn’t be doing this on an authorization bill
in the first place.”34
As the conference progressed, Nichols had become increasingly frustrated
with Tower. Barrett later reported: “It took us a little while to discern what Tower
was doing. Mr. Nichols felt that he had no recourse. He was not going to lose
his cool, his courtly southern demeanor, and he never did. He just sat there,
and that was his statement. He was at all conference meetings. When he would
bring up the JCS provisions, Tower would put them back down at the bottom.
In private, Mr. Nichols never forgave Tower. He loathed him for that. I never
heard Mr. Nichols curse, but once. In a private conversation with me, he re-
ferred to Tower as ‘that little son of a bitch.’ That was about as strong as he
would get, but he really felt Tower had not played fairly.”35
In responding to Tower’s statement, Nichols said: “I have tried to be pa-
tient. Four times, I have requested to be heard and have been put off. Now, the
hour is late. We have had only one meeting of staffs—last Friday. I am will-
ing to compromise, but I have not been allowed to bring the issues up till the
twelfth hour.”36
“Mr. Nichols,” Barrett recalled, “wanted JCS reform bad enough to push it
like he did and probably push it further in a conflict environment than any-
thing he’d ever done.”37
Barrett later described the dynamic: “Mr. Nichols had tremendous respect
on the House committee, just overwhelming, but it only goes so far. Tower played
his hand beautifully, and no matter how respected Mr. Nichols was, there was
only a certain amount of time that he could hold the members on our side. I
have never been under such pressure. I could see the House Republicans get-
ting resistive. Tower and Nichols were arguing, and Tower finally offered this or
that, a small point, and it began to look to the members that the Senate is being
reasonable. Kim Wincup came and told me, ‘We can’t hold it much longer.’”38
In the midst of this struggle, Barrett looked to me for help. There was noth-
ing I could do.
With six issues settled by the staff, Tower and Nichols debated the other
twelve. Nunn’s opposition to the two major provisions—JCS chairman in the
chain of command and as an NSC member—essentially killed them. After pro-
longed debate, Tower accepted one and then another of the House provisions.
The first would make the chairman responsible for determining when the JCS
would decide issues. The second would provide that the chairman would select
Joint Staff officers from among the most outstanding service officers. Nunn had
pushed for adoption of the latter.39
“Tower was just meagering it out by one little point at a time,” Barrett re-
called. “Mr. Nichols even whispered to me at one point: ‘This can’t go on much
longer.’ I tried to compute in my head what we could take and what not, what
would be some gain.”
Wincup advised Barrett in a whisper: “Arch, you better take what they’re
offering, ‘cause no one wants to stay much longer. This thing’s going to
crumble soon.”40
Every eye in the room was on Barrett. In contrast to earlier noise, mem-
bers and staff were silent. “I just held out to the very last minute,” Barrett re-
called. “Mr. Nichols was taking the temperature of everybody. Finally, we settled
for very little.”41
“When John Tower rolled Bill Nichols, people on the House side felt badly
about it,” Wincup later said. “They felt it was personal, maybe not an insult,
but close to it.”42
After Nichols salvaged all that he could, Nunn proposed report language
to accompany the bill that would commit the two committees to a comprehen-
sive reorganization effort in . “We turned the conference’s work on JCS
reform into a substantial report instead of a bill,” he said later. Because he had
based his opposition on the need for more informed study and a comprehen-
sive package of reforms, Tower was unable to object to the proreform language.
The report language praised the House for performing “an important service
in bringing JCS reform to the fore.” Citing the importance of reorganization,

the report said that the conferees agreed “that both committees will make these
issues high priority during the next session of Congress.” It added, “Both com-
mittees consider themselves fully committed to studying the issues of JCS re-
form and of comprehensive DoD organizational reform with the intent of en-
acting legislation during the next legislative year.”43
At Nunn’s initiative, the report also included a long list of questions to be
answered by the secretary of defense, JCS chairman, unified commanders,
service chiefs, and service secretaries. “I felt like the questions were impor-
tant because they would give us a foundation,” Nunn recalled. “I considered
their inclusion a significant move.”44 The report instructed responding officials
to send their answers directly to the two committees not later than March ,
. The conferees specified the requirement for direct responses in order to
evade the Pentagon’s thought police. Once the conference had approved the
idea of posing questions, Nunn gained permission for me to take the lead in
preparing them.
For the near-term, which was all he cared about, Tower had won a great
victory on JCS reorganization. Although the conference approved eight of the
House’s eighteen proposals, they were all minor ones, and three were watered
down before being adopted. Tower had turned aside the heart of the legisla-
tion. Significant reform was again thwarted. An internal Pentagon memoran-
dum reported, “We came out of this very well.”45
Nichols and Barrett felt that they had suffered a crushing defeat. Three
years of work by Barrett and two by Nichols seemingly went down the drain.
Nichols’s commitment to reform in the aftermath of the Beirut bombing had
been unequal to Tower’s maneuvering. “I was just devastated, and Mr. Nichols
was as unnerved as I was,” Barrett recalled. “To me, it was the end.”46
Congressman Ike Skelton, Nichols’s strongest supporter, saw the outcome
differently. “As we walked out of the conference room,” said Barrett, “Skelton
told me we had really done well. I just shook my head, and I probably lost
some of my demeanor.” Skelton persisted. “‘No, I’m serious. Modest as it was,
that was the first JCS reform that’s passed Congress since . We’ve broken
the dam.’”47
The next day, Skelton called Barrett to his office and “recounted what he
thought we had gained: ‘We had cracked this thing that hadn’t been cracked
since . This was only the first day. This was going to go further.’ To Skelton,
it was just a battle along the way.”48 Nunn and others felt as Skelton did.
Tower’s distinguished Senate career ended several months later. Four years
afterward, he was given his long-awaited shot at becoming the defense secre-
tary when President Bush nominated him for that prestigious position. But the
Senate rejected his nomination because of concerns about his personal con-
duct, and Tower’s career of public service ended tragically.
The Texas senator’s maneuvering on reorganization in  and  nei-

ther hurt nor helped his campaign for the Pentagon post, but the inquiry that
he launched provided a solid foundation for the SASC’s examination of reform
in the following two years. Ironically, it was retired marine general “Brute”
Krulak—wanting to dismantle the Pentagon’s unifying elements—who started
the SASC down a path that might eventually lead to a genuinely unified estab-
lishment. Whether that occurred would depend on the views and commitment
of Tower’s replacement, the new SASC chairman.
Crowe Makes Waves 195
CHAPTER 10
Crowe Makes Waves

Nothing is more important in war
than unity of command.
—Napoleon, The Military Maxims of Napoleon
T he Pacific Command (PACOM) had long been a navy stronghold. Its vast
ocean area—stretching from the west coast of the United States to the east
coast of Africa and encompassing half the earth’s surface—required the naval
service to lead American security efforts. Even after the post-Vietnam drawdown,
the Pacific Fleet in  remained an enormous entity:  ships, eighteen hun-
dred aircraft, , sailors and marines, and fifty-five shore facilities. It
dwarfed the air force and army forces in the Pacific.
Far removed from Washington, the Pacific theater nurtured some of the
most parochial thinking in the Defense Department. It also had made little
progress in improving its ability to conduct joint operations. From the begin-
ning of World War II through the mid-s, bitter, petty service politics had
precluded effective command arrangements. Disunity and disorganization
weakened combat operations. Disaster often resulted.
Into the military’s most anachronistic, fractured environment came a far-
sighted, open-minded sailor: Adm. Bill Crowe, the new PACOM commander in
chief. He belittled the parochialism of his own service: “The Navy has tradi-
tionally opposed anything that looked, sounded, or smelled joint.” Crowe said,
“I questioned that view.”1
Throughout his career, Crowe had often developed bold, new ideas and voiced
them firmly despite the objections of traditionalists. He rejected PACOM organi-
zational tenets ingrained by forty years of interservice bickering. Crowe believed
that the Pentagon and warfighting commands like his needed fundamental
reorganization. When given the chance, he broke with DoD’s official position
and provided corroborating evidence and critical behind-the-scenes support.
In , Adm. Stansfield Turner, a former director of central intelligence,
called Crowe “an unconventional thinker, unhampered by traditional wis-
dom, who figures things out for himself.” Crowe had been bucking conven-
tional wisdom since his graduation from Annapolis in . A diesel subma-
riner, he decided not to enter Admiral Rickover’s prestigious nuclear
submarine program because he wanted to attend graduate school. He subse-
quently enrolled at Princeton University, where he earned a doctorate in poli-
tics, despite having been advised that “both moves would hurt his chances of
promotion.”2
Many recognized Crowe’s intellectual skills. In the early s, he was
“widely regarded as among the most thoughtful naval officers.” Nevertheless,
numerous navy colleagues believed Crowe’s – tour as the four-star
CINC, Allied Forces Southern Europe (and later CINC, U.S. Naval Forces Eu-
rope) would be his last. Their attitude did not surprise Turner, who said, “The
Navy is a nonacademic organization that doesn’t have too much use for intel-
lectuals.”
Crowe’s powerful intellect more than made up for his lack of military bear-
ing. Friends described him “as looking like an unmade bed.” Crowe retained
the drawl from his Oklahoma boyhood and often cast himself as a country boy.
He was “a genuine raconteur with a fund of funny stories” that he used to
entertain and instruct. I remember him joking about the frustration of dealing
with Congress: “If Moses had gone up Capitol Hill rather than Mount Sinai, the
two tablets he would have returned with would have been aspirin.” After suffer-
ing through eleven banquets on an official trip to China, Crowe quipped, “I
regret that I have but one stomach to give for my country.”3
Crowe was caring and compassionate. In the s, he and his wife Shirley
housed an entire family of Vietnamese refugees—grandmother, parents, and
children—who had fled to America. “He didn’t have a big house,” a friend re-
called. “I expect it was quite crowded.”
I first met Crowe in  while he was serving in the Pentagon as a three-
star deputy CNO. I had just joined the Senate Armed Services Committee staff.
As a principal duty, I staffed the Pacific Study Group, a task force of four sena-
tors, headed by Senator Nunn. I was told that the first person I should talk to
was Crowe. The admiral’s Pentagon office contained a collection of more than
a hundred military and ceremonial hats from around the world. Some were
quite peculiar, and Crowe had a great story for each. His collection included a
nineteenth century British navy captain’s fore-and-aft cap, a reminder of his
Princeton thesis on the political roots of the Royal Navy. Crowe also had collected
a Micronesian bead headband from his days running the Micronesian-status
negotiations at the Interior Department.4
After Crowe departed the Pentagon to serve in Europe and then the Pacific,
I remained in contact with him as the committee’s senior foreign policy adviser.
When Congress adjourned in October, , I called Crowe to ask if I could
study PACOM for the SASC staff study on reorganization. Since the end of World
War II, nearly all of America’s significant military failures had occurred in the
Pacific, and some experts believed that inept command arrangements played a
major role in most of them. These conflicts and operations included the Ko-
rean and Vietnam Wars, the North Korean capture of the USS Pueblo in 
and shoot-down of a navy EC- aircraft in , and the evacuation of Saigon
and seizure of the Mayaguez, both in . The Pacific Command offered the
richest environment for learning about organizational problems in the field,
and an officer I knew well commanded it.
“Admiral, reorganization has become an explosive issue in Washington,” I
warned Crowe. You may not want congressional staffers poking around your
command on this topic.”
“Jim,” he replied, “I don’t know if you’ll learn anything, but you’re wel-
come.”
Before I departed for Hawaii, Russ Rourke, assistant secretary of defense for
legislative affairs, asked to see me. The gregarious redheaded former marine
effectively handled his duties as the Pentagon’s chief lobbyist with Congress.
Rourke’s outgoing personality won friends and arguments on Capitol Hill. His
savvy opinions on political issues were widely sought.
Much to my surprise, Rourke offered me a job as his deputy for Senate affairs.
I was honored by his offer but wanted to stay on the committee staff. I explained
that I had been working on reorganization for nearly eighteen months and
wanted to press ahead with that work.
“Jim, I admire your commitment,” said Rourke, “but reorganization is go-
ing nowhere. Weinberger is against it. Vessey is against it. No one is going to
overcome their opposition.”
I believed strongly in the need for reorganization, but Rourke’s assessment
had me feeling like Don Quixote mounting Rocinante. The conference report
language had committed the two Armed Services Committees to seriously ad-
dress this issue. But those were only words. I did not know what direction Sen.
Barry Goldwater—the anticipated new committee chairman—might take on
reorganization.
Rick Finn and Jeff Smith, fellow committee staffers, joined me on the Pacific
trip. We traveled first to Hawaii where Crowe and his army, navy, and air force
component commanders were headquartered. At the time of our trip, forty-
three years had passed since the lack of coordination between the army and
navy had contributed to Japan’s success at Pearl Harbor.
“A humiliation without precedent in American history” is how military

historian John Keegan characterized the December ,  attack.5 Six Japa-
nese aircraft carriers launched  planes to strike Pacific Fleet ships moored
at Pearl Harbor and American airpower located elsewhere on Oahu. Eighteen
warships, including eight battleships, were sunk, capsized, or damaged. Many
factors contributed: On-scene army and navy commanders poorly executed
their responsibilities. Low army and navy priority to intelligence gathering and
processing also proved costly. But the lack of unity of command ranked as the
foremost problem.
Two chains of command—one for the army, the other for the navy—con-
trolled American military forces in Hawaii in . The army chain ran from
Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, commanding general of the Hawaiian Department,
to Gen. George C. Marshall, army chief of staff, to Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson, and finally to President Roosevelt. The navy chain of command went
from Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the Pacific Fleet, to Adm. Harold
S. Stark, CNO, to Navy Secretary Frank Knox, and ultimately to the president.
These dual chains meant that no one below the president exercised authority
over both commanders in Hawaii.
The attack surprised Short and Kimmel despite separate warnings from
Marshall and Stark ten days earlier. Stark’s top-secret message to Kimmel be-
gan: “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning. Negotiations with Japan
. . . have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next
few days.”6 Stark’s message foresaw a Japanese attack in Southeast Asia as most
likely but alerted Kimmel to the potential of hostilities throughout the Pacific
Fleet’s area of responsibility. Likewise, Marshall told Short: “Japanese future
action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment.”7
The attack succeeded because the Japanese achieved strategic and tactical
surprise. Washington did not expect an attack on Hawaii, and the American
military failed to detect approaching Japanese forces. Dual command lines con-
tributed to intelligence shortcomings in the weeks before the attack. No one
below the White House was privy to all incoming intelligence. But no one at
that level had the time or even the responsibility for comprehensively analyz-
ing available intelligence. Peter P. Wallace concludes: “There was nowhere, short
of the president, that intelligence could be joined with the command authority
to take action on a joint basis, based on that intelligence.”8
During the year before Pearl Harbor, the army and navy had been unable
to agree on arrangements for unity of command at forward bases. Responsi-
bility for defense of Hawaii was unclear.9 With no unified commander, Short
and Kimmel commanded by mutual cooperation, the prescribed method of
coordination between the services. Neither questioned the other’s plans or op-
erations. Short assumed that the navy was conducting long-range air recon-
naissance, while Kimmel assumed that the army’s early warning radar was
fully operational. Neither assumption was correct. A congressional investigat-

ing committee found “a complete failure in Hawaii of effective Army-Navy liai-
son during the critical period November –December . There was but little
coordination and no integration of Army and Navy facilities and efforts for de-
fense. Neither of the responsible commanders knew what the other was doing
with respect to essential military activities.”10
The congressional investigating committee asserted: “It was only in the
wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster that the inherent and intolerable weaknesses
of command by mutual cooperation were exposed.”11 This was not really true.
The importance of unity of command had been recognized as a maxim of war
at least since Napoleon’s time.
The disaster alerted Roosevelt to the “dangers of divided command.” On
December , “determined that there should be no repetition of the confusion
of responsibility that existed in Hawaii,” he ordered establishment of a unified
command in Panama under the army. Some senior navy officers were opposed
to that order, but they accepted it, according to meeting minutes, because “un-
less unified control was effected by joint agreement between the Army and Navy,
the establishment of a Department of National Defense . . . might be consid-
ered a certainty.” On December , a unified command was established in Ha-
waii with the navy in charge. This time the navy did not object.12
Despite these early unifying moves and Pearl Harbor’s searing lesson, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff were never able to place the Pacific theater under a single
supreme commander. Service mistrust and jealousies prevailed. General
Douglas MacArthur, “a hero of towering stature,” was the most logical choice
for a supreme Pacific commander. He would greatly outrank in grade and se-
niority any admiral who might be nominated. MacArthur was believed to have
“the support of the president, the Army, the American people, and the Austra-
lians.” The navy vehemently opposed his selection and “would never have en-
trusted the fleet to a general unschooled in the mysteries of seapower.” A chief
navy planner warned that MacArthur would probably “use his naval force and
air forces in the wrong manner, since he has shown clear unfamiliarity with
proper naval and air functions.”13
Outside navy circles, significant support existed for a single commander.
Roosevelt “evidently had in mind a single commander for the entire area and
had so stated in his recent message to the Prime Minister [Winston
Churchill].”14 Marshall, who firmly believed in the importance of unified com-
mand in all theaters, argued in late December, : “I am convinced that
there must be one man in command of the entire theater—air, ground, and
ships. We can not manage by cooperation. Human frailties are such that there
would be emphatic unwillingness to place portions of troops under another
service. If we make a plan for unified command now, it will solve nine-tenths
of our troubles.”15
Even though Marshall’s arguments persuaded Roosevelt and Churchill,

the president did not force his preference on the navy. Unable to settle this army-
navy dispute, the JCS split the Pacific into two commands in March, .
Roosevelt acquiesced by failing to overrule the arrangement. This decision
doomed the Pacific theater to four decades of discord among the services and
underachievement or failure on the battlefield.
The JCS designated MacArthur commander of the Southwest Pacific Area
(SWPA) and Adm. Chester Nimitz commander of the remainder, entitled the
Pacific Ocean Areas. The dividing line was labeled the “Pope’s Line,” after the
line drawn by Pope Alexander IV in  to split the New World between Spain
and Portugal.16 MacArthur and Nimitz reported through their respective ser-
vice chief to the four-man JCS, which was immediately below Roosevelt in the
chain of command. That meant a military committee, becoming “in effect a
supreme command,” directed Pacific operations.17 Historian Ronald Spector
observed of this ill-conceived arrangement that “traditional elements of
careerism and doctrinal differences within the armed forces had combined to
produce a monstrosity.”18
Continuous army-navy bickering over strategy, command, and resources
flared into major fights. One such confrontation erupted in June, , over
command of an offensive to capture the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New
Britain. Because the offensive would be conducted in MacArthur’s SWPA, the
army argued that he should conduct it. The navy countered that the operation
should proceed under Nimitz’s command because it would be “primarily am-
phibious in character.”19
The JCS hotly debated this issue for a week. King bluntly warned Marshall
that he would instruct Nimitz to conduct the operation using only navy and
marine forces. MacArthur asserted that the navy’s stand reflected a longtime
scheme to effect “the complete absorption of the national defense function by
the Navy, the Army being relegated to merely base, training, garrisoning, and
supply purposes.”20
Marshall’s proposal to segment the operation into three tasks provided
the basis for a solution. Nimitz commanded the first task, and MacArthur the
other two.21
Divided command in the Pacific precluded an overall strategy for fighting
the Japanese and nearly caused a naval disaster in October, , at the Battle
of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines—the greatest naval battle in history. It was
also the last major fleet action of World War II. Although Leyte Gulf resulted in
an overwhelming U.S. victory, mistakes permitted by divided command endan-
gered American naval forces and nearly led to a crushing defeat that would
have rivaled Pearl Harbor.
The American landing on the island of Leyte during MacArthur’s return
to the Philippines led to the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese, fearing inter-
ruption of supply lines and loss of their most important captured territories,
saw the fight for the Philippines as vital. They thus committed to the battle
three naval fleets, a force that included almost every remaining Japanese
warship.
American naval forces supporting and protecting the landing were divided
into two fleets: the Third Fleet, commanded by Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey,
and the Seventh Fleet, commanded by Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid. Halsey’s chain
of command consisted of Nimitz in Hawaii, CNO Adm. Ernest King in Washing-
ton, and the JCS. Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet, “MacArthur’s Navy,” reported directly
to the army general. MacArthur, in turn, reported to Marshall, the army chief,
and then to the JCS. Thus, the two fleets supporting the American landing at
Leyte had no common superior below the JCS. The lack of unity of command in
the field, coupled with communications complications caused by separate re-
porting chains, led to potentially disastrous misunderstandings.
One pivotal misunderstanding centered on “Task Force .” Confusing
transmissions, beginning with Halsey’s plans to form a new unit, Task Force
, to engage heavy Japanese surface forces, led Kinkaid and Nimitz to assume
that Task Force  would be used to guard San Bernardino Strait, one of the
two possible Japanese approaches to Leyte Gulf. This would leave Kinkaid’s Sev-
enth Fleet free to concentrate on the other major entrance, Surigao Strait.
Halsey was supposed to cover the Leyte beachhead, but his orders from
Nimitz, possibly at King’s direction, contained an ill-considered caveat: “In case
opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet offers or can be
created, such destruction becomes the primary task.”22 Halsey seized upon this
caveat and entered the battle offensively minded.
MacArthur, still afloat off Leyte’s landing beaches, “was stunned by a ten-
tative request of Halsey’s regarding the possible withdrawal of fleet units from
the Leyte operation.” Halsey said an end to his covering mission “will permit me
to execute orderly rearming program for my groups and allow further offensive
operations.” Within minutes, MacArthur replied firmly: “Our mass of shipping
is subject to enemy air and surface raiding during this critical period. Consider
your mission to cover this operation is essential and paramount.”23
Despite MacArthur’s message, when Halsey discovered Japanese carriers
three hundred miles to the north, he left the Leyte Gulf region to attack them,
a move some called the “battle of Bull’s run.”24 The Japanese carriers, nearly
devoid of aircraft, were a decoy to draw Halsey’s fleet away from the battle. The
vessels intended for Task Force  went with Halsey. He compounded his error
by not telling Kinkaid that he had never formed Task Force .
This lack of coordination between Halsey and Kinkaid left San Bernardino
Strait and Kinkaid’s northern flank open to the Japanese. Japan’s strongest
fleet—consisting of four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and
eleven destroyers—sailed unopposed into Leyte Gulf. The only force blocking
the path to the landing area was a fragile “jeep”-carrier unit. The Japanese hoped
to smash this unit, then “wreak havoc on MacArthur’s beachheads only a hun-
dred miles to the south.”25
By the time Kinkaid became worried about Task Force ’s whereabouts,
the Japanese were coming through the strait and Halsey was  miles away.
Worse still, Halsey ignored Kinkaid’s desperate messages asking him to return.
Only when Nimitz sent Halsey the famous message—“WHERE IS TASK FORCE
THIRTY FOUR THE WORLD WONDERS”—did Halsey turn back. The last three
words of the message were added as padding to complicate enemy decryption
efforts. When Halsey’s decoding officer left them in the message, it turned
Nimitz’s “gentle nudge” into what Halsey perceived as a “sarcastic slap.”26
By the time Halsey arrived at Leyte Gulf, the battle had been won. King
and Nimitz “concluded that Halsey had made a crucial error of judgment and
tactical leadership in swallowing the bait dangled before him.”27 Divided com-
mand, exacerbated by King and Nimitz’s orders, had permitted Halsey to make
his error. Had he embraced MacArthur’s mission and been fully under his com-
mand, the admiral would not have left San Bernardino Strait unguarded.
MacArthur did not criticize Halsey after the battle. In response to critical
remarks by his staff, MacArthur said, “Leave the Bull alone. He’s still a fighting
admiral in my book.”28
Fortunately for the United States, heroic fighting by the jeep-carrier unit
and confusion and bad judgment by the Japanese overcame the problems cre-
ated by divided command. During the sea battle, however, MacArthur’s troops
were denied adequate air cover, which the Japanese exploited. The loss of escort-
carrier aircraft destroyed the air umbrella for subsequent ground operations, leav-
ing MacArthur’s invasion force “in gravest danger.”29 Of the Halsey-Kinkaid
misunderstandings, naval historian Nathan Miller concludes: “None of these
errors would have occurred had operations off Leyte been in the hands of a
single supreme commander.”30
MacArthur, in a view widely shared by historians, later criticized divided
command in the Pacific: “Of all the faulty decisions of the war, perhaps the
most inexplicable one was the failure to unify the command in the Pacific. The
principle involved is perhaps the most fundamental one in the doctrine and
tradition of command. . . . It was accepted and entirely successful in the other
great theaters. The failure to do so in the Pacific cannot be defended in logic, in
theory or even in common sense. Other motives must be ascribed. It resulted in
divided effort, the waste of diffusion and duplication of force, undue extension
of the war with added casualties and cost.”31
MacArthur thought the Battle of Leyte Gulf “produced the greatest jeop-
ardy” of all the “handicaps and hazards unnecessarily resulting” from divided
command. “Leyte came out all right,” he said, “but the hazards would all have
been avoided by unity of command.”32
Nine years later, the Naval War College initiated a special project to per-
form a “strategic and tactical analysis” and identify lessons from this great sea
battle. The CNO, Adm. Arleigh Burke, terminated the project after four years
before it reached the phase beginning with Halsey’s controversial pursuit of
the Japanese decoy. The project’s fifth and final volume explained: “For reasons
beyond the control of the Naval War College, the chief of naval operations de-
cided to conclude the battle analyses with the Battle of Surigao Strait and to
discontinue all other planned volumes.”33 Burke, who was chief of staff of one
of Halsey’s task forces at Leyte Gulf, had been convinced that heading after the
Japanese carriers was a mistake.34 Whatever Burke’s reasons, his premature
termination of the project denied the navy the opportunity to examine the
battle’s powerful lessons on the perils of divided command.
Despite the near disaster at Leyte Gulf, even the planned invasion of Japan
could not bring the army and navy to accept a unified command. The JCS fur-
ther compounded the problem: MacArthur would command the land cam-
paign, Nimitz would direct the sea battle, and Gen. Henry H. Arnold, command-
ing general of the Army Air Forces, would command the Twentieth Air Force’s
bombers as executive agent for the JCS.35
The Japanese surrender on August , , did not end the interservice
bickering over Pacific command responsibilities. The JCS struggled with this
controversial issue until September, , when General Eisenhower, who suc-
ceeded Marshall as army chief of staff, presented a worldwide command plan.
His proposal became the basis for the first Unified Command Plan, which Presi-
dent Truman approved on December .
The plan established two unified commands for the Pacific: Far East Com-
mand (FECOM) under MacArthur and PACOM under Adm. John H. Towers,
Nimitz’s successor. The Far East Command included forces in Japan, Korea, the
Philippines, adjacent islands, and those in China in an emergency. The Pacific
Command was assigned responsibility for security and operations in the re-
maining Pacific areas. In , as FECOM focused on directing American op-
erations in the Korean War, Washington transferred many of its geographic
responsibilities, including the Philippines, to PACOM.
In , the joint chiefs were again divided on the issue of Pacific com-
mand. Four chiefs wanted to disestablish FECOM and transfer its functions to
PACOM, “particularly in view of the dwindling U.S. military strength in Japan
and Korea, which cast doubt on the advisability of a separate command for
that region.” Predictably, the army chief dissented. The secretary of defense
sided with the majority, and FECOM was disestablished in July, .36
The long-sought creation of a supreme commander in the Pacific was fi-
nally achieved. Although this move should have improved interservice plan-
ning and operations, the desire of the services for independence destroyed the
arrangement’s potential. Command in Northeast Asia was more fractured
after FECOM’s disestablishment than before, and a new rival in Hawaii under-
mined the commander in chief, Pacific Command’s (CINCPAC) authority.
As part of the newly enlarged PACOM, smaller unified commands, known
as subordinate unified commands, were created in Japan and Korea. An air
force three-star general headed U.S. Forces, Japan (USFJ), which reported di-
rectly to PACOM in Hawaii. He also commanded the Fifth Air Force, USFJ’s air
force component. He did not exercise operational control over his army and
navy components, only “planning and coordination” authority. Despite his
description as a subordinate unified commander, the USFJ commander com-
manded only air force units.
Arrangements in Korea were even less favorable for unified operations. The
subordinate unified command, U.S. Forces, Korea (USFK), was commanded by
a four-star army officer who reported directly to the commanding general, U.S.
Army, Pacific (USARPAC), PACOM’s army component. Forces in Korea thus were
not under PACOM’s firm control, and the commander in Korea suffered the same
limited authority over other service components as his counterpart in Japan.
The  changes also diluted command authority in Hawaii. In response
to CINCPAC’s enlarged responsibilities, Washington instructed him to give up
command of the Pacific Fleet. He initially assigned this duty to his deputy, but in
, a separate position—the commander in chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT)—
was created to exercise command over all naval forces in the Pacific. This sub-
ordinate commander soon became a powerful competitor to, if not equal of,
his boss.
Ten years later, an incident on the high seas highlighted the continuing
disunity in PACOM and exacted a high price for not having truly unified the
commands in Japan and Korea. On January , , North Korean gunboats
seized the USS Pueblo, a small, slow, virtually unarmed intelligence-gathering
ship, in the Sea of Japan, approximately fifteen miles off the North Korean coast.
This incident represented the first capture of a U.S. Navy ship on the high seas
in peacetime in over  years. Because U.S. military forces failed to assist the
Pueblo from the beginning of the crisis until its arrival in Wonsan Harbor about
four hours later, the North Koreans seized sensitive information and gear and
imprisoned the vessel’s crew for eleven months. More important, the JCS pri-
vately assessed that foreign seizure of a U.S. Navy ship “damages severely the
prestige of the United States” and said “the credibility of the United States as a
defender of the principle of freedom of the seas is in jeopardy.”37 Organizational
problems, especially the lack of command unity in Northeast Asia, precluded
timely action to rescue the Pueblo.
At the time it was seized, the Pueblo, operating under cover as an oceano-
graphic research ship, was executing its first operational deployment. The USS
Banner, a sister ship, had previously conducted sixteen spy missions. Ten had
targeted the Soviet Union, three were conducted off China’s coast, and three
observed reactions to U.S. Navy transits of the Sea of Japan. Two of the Soviet
missions involved sailing up North Korea’s east coast. During these sixteen
missions, the Banner experienced ten incidents of “harassment/interference”:
one collision, one “heave to or I will fire” signal, three closing situations with
guns trained, two surroundings by trawlers, two instances of dangerous ma-
neuvers, and one shouldering. There was, however, “no record of harassment,
surveillance, or interference by North Korean ships.”38
Because of harassment, on two occasions a destroyer and two fighter air-
craft on five-minute alert were dedicated to protecting Banner if the ship were
threatened. Planning for one mission envisioned assigning one cruiser and
thirty-one aircraft to provide round-the-clock defense for Banner.39
The Pueblo’s chain of command had assessed its mission as one involving
minimal risk. Accordingly, Rear Adm. Frank L. Johnson, commander of U.S.
Naval Forces, Japan—who exercised operational control over the Pueblo—did
not earmark specific air and naval forces to assist the ship if attacked. However,
twenty-five days before the ship was seized, the National Security Agency
(NSA)—an intelligence agency that eavesdrops on foreign communications—
sent a message to the Joint Reconnaissance Center, which worked for the JCS,
warning of the danger of an attack on the Pueblo. The message said the North
Koreans would likely take offensive action and suggested an evaluation of the
“requirement for ship protective measures.”40
Four days later, the Joint Reconnaissance Center retransmitted the mes-
sage to CINCPAC with an information copy to the CNO. The Pacific Command
took no action and did not pass the warning to subordinate commands. Dur-
ing the congressional inquiry on the Pueblo seizure, Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp,
CINCPAC, explained that no action was taken because the message was “for
information and not for action.” Junior officers, recognizing no new informa-
tion, did not bring it to Sharp’s or other senior officers’ attention.41
American officers in South Korea were not so passive. In early January, Brig.
Gen. John W. Harrell Jr., the USFK air force component commander, was “be-
coming concerned about the belligerency of the North Koreans in the Demilita-
rized Zone” between the two Koreas. He had read a copy of the Pueblo’s sailing
order and routine mission assessment. Although Harrell and others in South
Korea had not seen the NSA’s warning message, he thought the navy “was adopt-
ing a fairly cavalier attitude about the North Koreans.” On January , he asked
his staff to check with Fifth Air Force headquarters in Japan to ensure that he
did not need “to prepare a strip alert or take any other precautionary measures
on the ship’s behalf.” The response from U.S. Naval Forces, Japan, was that there
was no need for a strip alert. Three days later, the navy repeated its negative
response to a second air force inquiry.42
Totally unaware of the peril awaiting it, the Pueblo departed Japan on Janu-
ary  for its area of operation off the North Korean coast. Around noon on
January , the Pueblo noticed an approaching patrol boat. Within an hour, four
North Korean submarine chasers had surrounded the U.S. spy ship. Soon, two
North Korean MIG aircraft were overhead. Pueblo alerted its shore base in Japan
at : P.M. that this activity was not routine harassment. More than ninety
minutes later, at : P.M., the ship sent its last message: “Have been directed to
come to all stop and being boarded at this time.” The captured ship arrived in
Wonsan harbor at : P.M. Sunset occurred at : P.M. with total darkness twelve
minutes later. According to Peter Wallace, “The seizure was rapid, but there was
some appreciable time for reaction if forces and commanders acted quickly.”43
Back in Washington, Capt. Bill Crowe, fifteen years prior to becoming
CINCPAC, was handling policy issues on the Pueblo’s seizure for navy head-
quarters. He later observed that the crew’s lack of resistance had shortened
the reaction time for U.S. forces. “The crew had not, for example, steamed away
and forced the North Koreans to make a decision about sinking them. They
had not put the engines out of commission, which would have forced their
captors to tow them in (and would also have provided more time to mount a
rescue mission).”44
Admiral Johnson in Japan did not command any forces capable of assisting
the Pueblo. He had to request assistance from Lt. Gen. Seth J. McKee, dual-hat-
ted as commander of both USFJ and the Fifth Air Force. This request took more
than forty minutes to be communicated “because of the failure of the two com-
mands to previously establish and exercise emergency telephone procedures.”45
Air force aircraft on alert in South Korea were ruled out because they were
armed with nuclear weapons, and the forty-one air force fighter aircraft in Ja-
pan were assumed to be unavailable because the Status of Forces Agreement
governing USFJ’s presence in Japan prohibited mounting combat operations
from the home islands. McKee believed his only option was the air force wing
on Okinawa, about three hundred miles farther south and seven hundred miles
from the Pueblo. He ordered his commander there: “You are to launch aircraft
as soon as possible. You are to proceed to Osan, South Korea, refuel as soon as
possible, proceed to the scene at Wonsan Harbor and strike in her [Pueblo] sup-
port at any forces opposing her.” Two F-  aircraft launched one hour and
twenty-three minutes after the order was received. By the time they reached
Osan, however, it was clear that they would not reach the Pueblo before dark.
Although their efforts proved futile, the air force commanders had at least acted
decisively. They were the only ones to do so.46
Two squadrons of marine fighter/attack aircraft based in Japan while un-
dergoing air-to-surface training were only an hour’s flight time away from the
Pueblo and could have been used to respond. Unfortunately, these units—which
reported to a forward command element of the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, on
Okinawa—were not in the same communications net as the Pueblo and did not
even hear of the crisis until the following day.47
General McKee knew of the marine squadrons, though. However, despite

being commander of USFJ, he had no authority over them. To employ marine
aircraft he would have had to ask the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) commander in
Hawaii to work the issue with either CINCPAC or CINCPACFLT.48
The aircraft carrier Enterprise, which as part of the Seventh Fleet was con-
ducting maneuvers approximately five hundred miles from the Pueblo, offered
another avenue of assistance. Admiral Johnson in Japan assumed Washington
would direct the Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Adm. William F. Bringle, to
assist the Pueblo. Accordingly, he did not request the carrier’s assistance. Mean-
while, Enterprise’s chain of command knew of Pueblo’s distress at : P.M., but
took no action. Thirty-five of Enterprise’s fifty-nine fighter aircraft were opera-
tional. An appropriate strike force could have been launched within ninety
minutes and been over the Pueblo an hour later. At : P.M., Admiral Bringle
directed that “no ship or aircraft take any overt action until further informed.”
He did, however, order the Enterprise to change course and head toward Ko-
rea—but not until almost three hours after the crisis began.
Of the navy’s inaction and his mistreatment by the North Koreans, a Pueblo
crew member said more than a year later at the navy court of inquiry, “All the
beatings that I and the rest of the crew took didn’t hurt half as much as the
fact that when we were pleading for help, we got none from the largest Navy in
the world.”49
The Pueblo incident showed critical flaws in U.S. military organization in
Northeast Asia. Operational command remained divided in Japan and Korea.
Although air force and army forces were unified under a subordinate unified
commander in each country, navy and marine forces maintained separate re-
porting chains. Even naval command was divided between the Seventh Fleet
and local commanders. Because navy, air force, and marine commanders in
Japan worked for three separate chains, they did not work with each other. In
essence, no unity of command existed below CINCPAC. The absence of such
unity proved insurmountable in the Pueblo crisis.
This divided command also had a geographic dimension. The authority of
the subordinate unified commanders in Japan and Korea stopped at the water’s
edge. Naval commanders retained responsibility for adjacent seas. This meant
that the commander of USFK—the most knowledgeable officer on the military
situation on the Korean peninsula—had no involvement in Pueblo’s mission.
The special congressional subcommittee said its Pueblo inquiry “has resulted
in the unanimous view that there exist serious deficiencies in the organizational
and administrative military command structure of both the Department of the
Navy and Department of Defense.”50 Despite the dangers demonstrated by this
crisis, neither Washington nor Honolulu did anything to correct the problems.
At the time of my October, , Pacific trip, organizational arrangements in
Northeast Asia remained as they had been during the Pueblo tragedy.
As Finn, Smith, and I prepared for our trip to Hawaii, our studies suggested that
poor interservice coordination continued to be a serious problem throughout
PACOM. We also concluded that the Pacific theater never learned the organiza-
tional lessons of past operations: Leyte Gulf repeated Pearl Harbor, Vietnam
repeated Korea, Mayaguez repeated Pueblo. Early in our travels, we discovered
ample evidence to support these preliminary views.
On the trip’s first day, October , , we met privately with Crowe and
his executive assistant, Capt. Joseph Strasser, USN. We agreed that Crowe’s com-
ments would be off-the-record and closely held. Only such arrangements would
make it possible for Crowe to break with the Pentagon’s official line if he were
inclined to do so. And he was inclined to do so. What he was about to tell us
would have made the Pentagon, especially his own service, furious with him.
During his last several assignments, Crowe had expressed to colleagues his views
on the need for organizational changes. But he had never spoken about the
issue outside of the military.51 Although Crowe then believed and told us his
career would end after the tour in Hawaii, the admiral knew that the Penta-
gon, if it learned of his comments to us, would show its displeasure through-
out the rest of his tour.
Crowe later said he had agreed to our visit because he “felt strongly that
there was a need to do something on defense reorganization.” He explained his
openness: “Most people didn’t want change. Occasionally, I would run into
somebody who really thought there was a need for change. But Locher was the
first person that . . . really had in mind doing something and was in a position
to do something—given the senators he was working for. That’s the reason I
was so open with him, because there was really a chance that something would
come out of it.”52
Crowe set aside sixty minutes for our meeting. It lasted six hours.
I began by laying out the results of our research and outlining reform op-
tions. Crowe liked what he heard and quickly jumped into the discussion. His
views on problems harmonized with ours. The admiral’s bold, candid assess-
ments contrasted sharply with the don’t-offend-anyone comments from nearly
all officers in Washington. “In my meetings with Jim Locher I discussed the
need to streamline the cumbersome command setup,” he recalled. “I was even
more vocal about the need to assure the loyalty of the component command-
ers to their unified commander rather than to their service chiefs. Component
commanders had to have a single boss. I also favored more jointness through-
out the operational world and a further centralization of authority under the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”53
I questioned Crowe about his control over service logistics, which he had
said were key to his command’s warfighting capabilities. Finn, Smith, and I
had heard a horror story in Washington that suggested logistics was a seri-
ous problem. As reported in Washington, Pacific war plans developed by Crowe
and his headquarters staff specified the locations for the services’ war reserve
stocks. Reportedly, the Pacific Fleet refused to comply because it envisioned
different conflict scenarios. Claiming that logistics remained a service mat-
ter, the Pacific Fleet put its stocks where it wanted them. Crowe confirmed
this story and said it exemplified his inability to prepare his command for its
missions.
Crowe’s later writings paralleled his comments to us. “Like every other uni-
fied commander, I could only operate through the army, navy, air force, and
marine component commanders, who stood between me and the forces in the
field. The problem with this arrangement was that though the unified com-
mander had all the responsibility, he did not have sufficient authority. His com-
ponent commanders reported to their own service chiefs for administration,
logistics, and training matters, and the service chiefs could use this channel to
outflank the unified commander. There was a sizable potential for confusion
and conflict.”
For nearly ten years, Crowe had watched the services circumvent unified
commanders. “I noticed it when I was the Navy operations deputy and then
saw it again when I was commander in chief in Hawaii. The component com-
manders were always fighting the unified commander with back channels to
their service chiefs to try and get the JCS chairman to change some things that
the unified commander was doing. I never liked that very well. That just didn’t
seem right to me.”54
The admiral also had powerful insights on Pentagon problems, especially
in the JCS system. Crowe’s service as the navy operations deputy in the JCS
arena from  to  exposed him to the deficiencies of this committee sys-
tem. He said he “had gradually developed my own conviction on the need for
reform” during this tour. Later, he summarized these ills: “The main problems
with the Joint Staff were not enough jointness and too much compromise. Each
service habitually saw every issue exclusively from its own standpoint and in
many instances held up the release of papers until its concerns were accom-
modated in some fashion. This typically resulted in watered-down positions
that took too long to formulate.”55
Crowe also believed that joint work suffered from poor officer management:
“I was likewise convinced that the quality of officers detailed to the Joint Staff
could use substantial upgrading. It was unusual to find the most highly re-
garded officers laboring in the Joint Staff vineyard; many considered a tour there
as a hurdle on the career path.”
At the end of the meeting, Crowe asked us to meet with him again in two
days, after we had met with his army, navy, and air force component command-
ers. Responding to Crowe’s openness, I gave him a copy of the staff study’s chap-
ter on the unified commands. He promised to read it and provide his thoughts
at our second meeting.
At that subsequent meeting, Crowe said: “Don’t change a word in this chap-
ter. I am amazed that congressional staffers in Washington have been able to
precisely capture the problems plaguing major commanders in the field.”
After our meetings with Crowe, Finn, Smith, and I decided not to summa-
rize the discussions in memoranda for the record. We were uncertain as to the
SASC’s direction on reorganization and feared that our memoranda might fall
into unfriendly hands and create troubles for Crowe. We kept only a brief list of
topics discussed.
Although Crowe had expected his Hawaii command to be the final assign-
ment of his naval career, President Reagan and his advisers were eyeing the
fifty-nine-year-old admiral for JCS chairman. In April, , Reagan had stopped
in Hawaii en route to China. Crowe said he was told he “would have thirty
minutes with the president and that I ought to cover anything I thought im-
portant for him to know before he left for China.”56
Reacting favorably to Crowe’s informal style and insightful presentation,
an “attentive and interested” Reagan extended the meeting to an hour and one-
half. After the session, Secretary of State George Shultz told Crowe: “The Presi-
dent was very impressed.” Back in Washington, Defense Secretary Weinberger
asked Reagan, “How did my commander do out in Hawaii?” Reagan responded
that if they needed another chairman, he had found him.57
In addition to meeting with the senior army, navy, and air force commanders
in the Pacific, we also traveled to Crowe’s subordinate unified commands in
Japan and Korea. Our reception in four of these five commands was coolly po-
lite, but we ran into a buzz saw at the Pacific Fleet headquarters at Pearl Har-
bor: Adm. Sylvester R. Foley Jr. Our visit with him convinced us that the Pacific
Fleet had earned its reputation as DoD’s most parochial organization.
After keeping us waiting, a scowling Foley swaggered into the room and
barked, “I’ve read your bios and I know your biases.” The short, crewcut four-
star sailor was referring to the fact that Jeff Smith and I had strong army back-
grounds as West Point graduates and must share the army’s traditional bent
for greater unification. As an army brat, Rick Finn was probably under suspi-
cion as well. “The meeting deteriorated from there,” Smith recalled. Foley re-
sponded harshly to each issue we raised and “lectured us about how he knew
everything, and we didn’t know anything.”58 The admiral gave us a first-class
tongue-lashing.
Rear Admiral J. A. “Jack” Baldwin, Foley’s deputy chief of staff for plans,
sat in on the meeting. I knew Baldwin from my Pentagon service. He had a
first-class reputation among navy thinkers and analysts. During the meeting,
Baldwin did not speak. He had served on Foley’s staff for only two weeks and
did not know his boss well. Although Baldwin did not open his mouth, the pro-
ceedings opened his eyes widely.
Baldwin later recalled that Foley “came in hot.” He was “surprised” by his
boss’s “abrasive” manner, which he said was “uncharacteristic” of him. Ac-
cording to Baldwin, Foley gave us the “rough hide of his tongue,” and he
thought that Foley’s “straightforward, tough” message should have been
“phrased differently.” Baldwin recalled Foley repeating his basic in-your-face
theme over and over: “Why should a bunch of civilians from back in Washing-
ton be telling the military how to do its business?”59
I abandoned efforts to explain Congress’ role as prescribed by the Constitu-
tion when it became clear that Foley found my explanation more irritating than
enlightening.
Toward the end of the meeting, I asked Foley about the logistics horror
story we had discussed with Crowe. Foley confirmed that the navy had not put
its war reserve stocks where Crowe had directed. “Logistics is none of Crowe’s
damn business.” According to Foley, “Logistics always has been and always
will be the sole prerogative of each individual service.” He added, “Crowe is
always trying to butt in where he doesn’t belong.”
Foley treated us more rudely than anyone we encountered during our re-
organization work (and we had confronted plenty of unpleasant behavior).
As the meeting was wrapping up, I was anxious just to escape. But not Jeff
Smith. Foley’s behavior angered Smith, a quiet, dignified gentleman. As the
admiral began to stomp out of the room, Smith quickly rose and blocked his
path. For a moment, they stood nose-to-nose (being shorter, Foley’s nose was
somewhat lower). In two rapid sentences, the West Pointer told the admiral:
“Serious organizational problems exist in DoD. Parochial views such as yours
are blocking necessary reforms.” After having his say, Smith stepped aside,
and Foley stormed out.
Foley had invited us to have lunch and tour Pearl Harbor with him on his
barge. However, given the stormy nature of the meeting and the admiral’s fiery
exit, I guessed we would not be eating together. I was right.
Despite the admiral’s unpleasant behavior, Smith found the meeting with
Foley invaluable. “It made a point that Foley never intended,” he said later. “The
meeting conveyed that service component commanders like Foley were not only
unresponsive to their unified commander, they were also arrogant and power-
ful. That’s where the power was. And by God, they were running things for the
navy in the Pacific. Foley, not Crowe, was the real power in Hawaii. His staff
radiated that reality, and he reinforced it. Learning that made the meeting with
Foley in some respects of equal value, if not more valuable, than the meeting
with Crowe.”60
Although Foley had beaten up three congressional staffers that day in Oc-
tober, , a day of reckoning occurred a little more than a year later. After
Foley retired from the navy, President Reagan nominated him to serve as assis-
tant secretary of energy for defense programs. This civilian presidential
appointment required the advice and consent of the Senate, and the commit-
tee with jurisdiction happened to be the SASC. Jeff Smith, the top minority staff
lawyer, handled Foley’s nomination and hearing for the Democrats.
“I remember the sweetness of it when Admiral Foley had to sit down in
front of me and go through his finances and conflicts of interest,” Smith re-
called. “He treated me like I was his best friend, saying, ‘Hey, Jeff, how are you?
Great to see you again. Defense reorganization is a good thing.’ He was all for
it then.”
During Foley’s confirmation hearing on December , , Sen. John
Warner scolded the admiral for his treatment of the committee staff during the
 trip. Warner opposed reorganization, and as a former navy secretary, he
did not relish dressing down an admiral in public. But Foley’s challenge to the
SASC’s institutional prerogatives had forced Warner’s hand. After explaining
that the committee asks staff members to make visits when senators are not
able to do so, Warner said to Foley, “I expect—but I would like to have you say
for the record—that you will cooperate fully with staff persons at such times as
you are visited on work in connection with this committee.”61
Smith remembered Foley’s expression when Warner finished: “It looked as
if he’d eaten the world’s most sour pickle. I tried not to smile, but I know I wanted
to smile.”62
In the context of Foley’s nomination, this was a minor issue. On larger
issues, the SASC found Foley fully qualified and recommended the Senate ap-
prove his nomination.
Seven years later, Jeff Smith still had not forgotten Sylvester Foley. After
the election in November, , President-elect Bill Clinton selected Smith to
head his DoD transition team. When I first saw Smith after he assumed those
duties in the Pentagon, he grinned at me and asked, “Where is Admiral Foley
now, and how can we get at him?”
Our Pacific trip ended with a flight from Korea to Washington on November ,
the day before the presidential and congressional elections. Finn, Smith, and I
were elated by the results of our trip, especially the meetings with Admiral
Crowe. Although Generals Jones and Meyer and others had addressed prob-
lems in the JCS system, senior officers had not yet articulated problems in the
unified commands. Crowe had reinforced the conclusions of our research. His
praise of the staff study’s chapter on the unified commands—much of which
represented new thinking—reassured us.
Although Finn, Smith, and I had learned a great deal from our trip, we did
not know whether the SASC would ever use the information. Three questions
had to be answered first. Would the Republicans maintain control of the Sen-
ate? If so, would Goldwater replace Tower as SASC chairman? If he did, would
Goldwater give priority to reorganization or would he bury the issue?
Goldwater and Nunn Close Ranks 213
CHAPTER 11
Goldwater and Nunn

Close Ranks
In battle, two moral forces, even more than
two material forces, are in conflict.
The stronger conquers.
—Col. Ardant du Picq, Battle Studies
“J im, I’ve got some great news,” began a mid-December  call from Gerald
J. Smith of Sen. Barry Goldwater’s personal staff. “The old man has decided
to make defense reorganization his number-one priority. He views Pentagon
reform as a critical issue and one where he might be able to make a lasting
contribution before he retires.” Smith explained that Goldwater knew “that if
there is to be any chance of enacting meaningful reforms, partisan politics must
be avoided. He’s decided to take a truly bipartisan approach.
“You know the boss gets along well with Senator Nunn and has the great-
est respect for him. Goldwater believes that he and Nunn will work well to-
gether on reorganization. He will approach Nunn with his ideas as soon as he
can in the new year.”
When Goldwater’s intentions later became publicly known, reorganization
opponents made relentless efforts to persuade him to forfeit his planned role.
The Republicans maintained control of the Senate in the  elections.
Tower’s retirement put Goldwater—the GOP presidential candidate twenty
years earlier—in line to chair the Armed Services Committee. The Arizona
Republican, a pilot during World War II, retired from the Air Force Reserve as a
major general in . He had celebrity status in the defense community.
Despite his promilitary disposition, Goldwater’s powerful new role did not
please everyone in the Pentagon. He was opinionated, independent, and un-
predictable. Secretary Weinberger privately confided that Goldwater concerned
him more than House Democrats. One defense official reported “very deep con-
cern” about Goldwater, while a lobbyist described the Pentagon mood: “Not
despairing, but sober. Minor alarm, I guess.”
Senator Cohen clarified why Weinberger and others were worried: “Barry
has enough of the maverick in him to say that something is not a good idea.
The Pentagon can’t count on him to be a rubber stamp. He can always surprise
you. His conservatism is not knee-jerk.”
“When a program needs criticizing,” Goldwater explained, “I don’t hesi-
tate to criticize. In that respect, I guess I’m not what you’d call a politician. I’ve
never particularly worried whether what I said cost me votes or didn’t cost me
votes. I’m more worried whether if what I’m doing is best for the country. I
have a tendency to say what I think. I don’t think I would ever stop doing that.
It’s gotten me into trouble, but it hasn’t been the kind of trouble I couldn’t get
myself out of.”1
Goldwater did not automatically accept the SASC chairmanship. His health
and age—seventy-six by the time he assumed the post—caused him to doubt
his ability to carry out the duties. With Senate resistance to the Reagan defense
program increasing, the Arizonan did not want to let the president and his
party down. “I think it is really too big a job for me,” Goldwater told intimates.
“I’m worried. There haven’t been many things in my life that I have worried
like hell about. I just don’t think I can do it.”2
Goldwater underestimated his capabilities. During his  presidential
campaign, he said, “I’m not sure I’ve even got the brains to be president.” Five
months into his job as chairman, Goldwater wrote to Nunn: “I don’t mind
telling you I took that job with a lot of trepidation. I have been in the Senate
now for almost thirty years, and while I have held some minor jobs, I have
never held anything with the quality and authority of the Armed Services
Committee.”3
Goldwater credited Tower with convincing him to take the job. “I had a
couple of good long conversations with John Tower,” he said, “and old John
was full of bullshit, but we would sit there and talk, and I was finally thinking I
could do it.” With other friends and colleagues also encouraging him, Goldwater
decided to chair the committee for the last two years of his Senate career.4
On December , several weeks after the elections, Goldwater met with the
entire committee staff. His request for both Republican and Democratic staffers
to attend was unusual, for in one month he would become the boss of only
those who worked for the majority party. To my surprise, Goldwater spoke with
a warm bipartisan tone. I had expected the crusty Arizonan to be a Republican
crusader. A few days later, he reinforced his bipartisan approach in a memo-
randum to the staff: “I think we can do a great job together and I think the best
way to start is to forget about being Republicans or Democrats or liberals or
conservatives. We should concentrate on just being good old Americans who
want to move along with the idea of providing the best defense for America
that we can. My door is always open and my mind will stay the same, open.”
These proved to be much more than idle words.5
“I’m the only Republican that ever lived in my family. My uncle started the
Democratic Party in Arizona,” said Goldwater, explaining the roots of his bipar-
tisanship. When he entered politics, Goldwater found working with Democrats
imperative. “Arizona was a strong Democratic state—had a lot of counties that
were  percent Democratic. I was a Republican, and I had to get elected.”
Even while campaigning for president in , Goldwater admitted, “I don’t
necessarily vote a straight ticket in my own state because there are sometimes
Democrats out there who are better than Republicans. It’s hard to believe but
it’s true.”6
Goldwater surprised us near the end of the staff meeting when he said: “I
know that the committee staff is in the habit of sending papers and talking
points to the chairman for each and every issue. I’ve been in the defense busi-
ness my entire life, and I don’t need anybody telling me what to think or say. So,
don’t send me any of those papers. I don’t want them. If I need your help, which
is unlikely, I’ll ask for it.”
To a staff that prepared papers on every issue for the chairman, our new
instructions were an about-face. Goldwater’s feisty independence was legend-
ary, but no one had expected him to diminish the staff’s role so quickly.
Goldwater had been closely connected to the military throughout his life.
“Arizona’s history is very military,” he said. “At one time, we had half of the
United States Army stationed in the State just to support the action against two
hundred Indians, and the Indians kicked the shit out of us. Arizona has always
been military.”7
The future senator’s interest in the military started early. “I grew up know-
ing military people,” he said. “I liked the military. I went to the Staunton Mili-
tary Academy when I was fourteen. I kept wanting to go to West Point”8 His
Staunton instructors told Goldwater that he had qualified for a West Point ap-
pointment. “The idea appealed to me, but my father was not well. Mun [his
mother] wanted me to come home.”9 Goldwater enrolled at the University of
Arizona in the fall of , but his college days and dreams of West Point ended
with his father’s death the following March. Goldwater decided that he “should
leave college and prepare to take his place at the family store.”10
In , Goldwater was commissioned as an infantry second lieutenant in
the army reserve and earned a private airplane pilot’s license. In , he at-
tempted to join the Army Air Corps. Substandard eyesight caused his rejec-
tion. In , with war approaching, Goldwater maneuvered onto active duty
and was assigned as an aerial gunnery instructor. However, his age and eye-
sight ruled out his becoming an aviation cadet.
In , Goldwater’s request for transfer to the Air Transport Command
was approved. The Air Corps had organized a group of overage pilots known as
“the Over-the-Hill Gang” to deliver aircraft and supplies overseas, and Goldwater
piloted aircraft to war zones in Europe, Africa, and Asia. He also served as a
flight instructor for Chinese pilots in Burma. After the war, he became chief of
staff of the Arizona National Guard with the rank of colonel and ended his
career as a two-star general in the reserve. The ever-honest Goldwater told Tower
his promotion to major general was “not important because you know and I
know that I would never have gotten that promotion had I not been a senator.”11
Preparing for his new duties, Goldwater agreed to take reorganization briefings
from two proreform public policy organizations: Georgetown University’s Cen-
ter for Strategic and International Studies and the Heritage Foundation.
On December , Goldwater took the CSIS briefing, presented by General
Goodpaster, a vice chairman of the reorganization project. Goodpaster was a
good choice to make this presentation. The retired army general was approach-
ing seventy, so he and Goldwater were of the same generation. Goodpaster had
served as staff secretary to President Eisenhower—connecting him to the last
defense reorganization, in . Moreover, Goodpaster had recently completed
a four-year tour as superintendent of his alma mater, West Point. Goldwater,
who maintained his deep affection for “the Point,” wrote: “One of the greatest
frustrations of my life is that I did not take advantage of an appointment to
West Point and attend that school. I hold West Point in the highest regard and
always will.”12
Gerry Smith arranged for me to sit in on Goodpaster’s briefing. Goldwater,
who had not been involved in the SASC’s reorganization work, took a keen in-
terest in the presentation. From his long military association, Goldwater rec-
ognized many of the problems that Goodpaster described. The senator was most
animated regarding unnecessary duplication of military capabilities. As early
as , he berated the Pentagon on duplication. “My pet gripe is that we have
four tactical air forces: Army, Navy and Marines, as well as the Air Force itself.
This is one of the glaring examples of repetition that we don’t need.”13
I concurred with much of Goodpaster’s presentation. Many of its themes
agreed with preliminary results of the staff study. After the briefing, I informed
Goldwater of the status of the staff’s reorganization work. The senator showed
genuine interest in the briefing and my status report but made no commitments.
Ted Crackel briefed Goldwater on the Heritage Foundation’s study the fol-
lowing week. Its analysis and recommendations paralleled CSIS’s. Heritage’s
conservatism heightened the importance of its support for reform. With the con-
servative military and conservative administration opposing reform, Heritage’s
21. Senator Goldwater as a cadet captain at Staunton

Military Academy in 1928. (Arizona Historical
Foundation, Arizona State University.)
proreform stance helped prevent reorganization from dividing along ideologi-

cal lines. Again, Goldwater was interested and actively participated, but he did
not reveal his thinking.
Although Goldwater was guarding his plans, the two briefings reinforced
his longstanding interest in reorganization. In , Goldwater, then an Air
Force Reserve colonel, wrote a seventy-five-page paper titled, “A Concept for
the Future Organization of the United States Armed Forces.” In it he argued
that the military’s “weak spot” was “our scheme of organization.” Colonel
Goldwater suggested that reorganization be guided by the signs at the North
American Air Defense headquarters: “Our mission is to defend the United States,
Canada, Alaska, and the northeast area from an attack: NOT TO DEFEND THE
ROLES OF THE RESPECTIVE SERVICES.”14
The Vietnam War had deeply troubled Goldwater. He said that after his
 presidential election defeat “the war became one of the driving forces in
my life. I regularly spoke with American troops in Vietnam through the MARS
[Military Affiliate Radio System] network that had been patched into the ham
radio shack next to our home. I also toured our military bases on five visits to
Vietnam, getting the views of many old friends and acquaintances—military
commanders, pilots, and GIs in the field.”15
In a newspaper article published in March, , Goldwater criticized
America’s performance in Indochina: “Blunder followed upon blunder. It is im-
possible to list all the mistakes that were made. For example, it took us almost
five years to understand what the Viet Cong was, what it was all about and
how they operated. From that knowledge, we eventually but too late, gained
an understanding of how we would have to use our forces to successfully com-
bat them.”16
Goldwater placed much of the blame for Vietnam on civilian meddling in
tactical military issues. While supporting President Johnson’s and Defense Sec-
retary McNamara’s need for “broad war powers,” he disputed “their military
competence in making extensively detailed decisions about how to fight the
war.” Goldwater cited a SASC report published in  that said civilians had
discounted the “unanimous professional judgment of our military command-
ers and the Joint Chiefs, and substituted civilian judgment in the details of tar-
get selection and the timing of strikes.” He asserted, “My own belief in civilian
control of the armed forces is unshakeable.” But he agonized over the ques-
tion: “To what degree may the limited competence of civilians be allowed to
dominate professional military decisions?”17
The Arizona senator also faulted military leaders of the Vietnam era for
not protesting, a view also expressed by Gen. Edward Rowny: “In the end, there
was no one of stature in the military who stood up to [McNamara]. They could
have done so—not in public, because that was against tradition—but inter-
nally. They could have said, ‘Either you support us or we quit.’”18
Goldwater discussed repeated operational setbacks and “the need for some
sort of reorganization” with Smith, a retired air force colonel serving as the
senator’s military legislative assistant. He saw the Iranian rescue as “plagued
with planning, training, and organizational problems. It was an ad hoc, im-
provised operation from start to finish.” Searching for reasons for the failure,
Goldwater talked at length with Col. Charles A. Beckwith, the army officer com-
manding the mission’s ground force, who told Goldwater: “We didn’t have [a]
team. We got the four services reaching up on a shelf and giving us different
outfits. I believe it would have been a different story in Iran—and . . . in Viet-
nam—if the four services had fought under a unified command.”19
“The terrorist killing of Marines disturbed me greatly,” Goldwater revealed.
Of the Beirut tragedy, he said: “The fault was in the Pentagon command struc-
ture. The cumbersome chain of command imposed on the general [in charge]
by the JCS and services precluded effective control.” Five years after the bomb-
ing, Goldwater fumed, “I’m still outraged by the whole military mess.”20
The chairman labeled the Grenada invasion “a minefield of errors.” Com-

munications foul-ups in Grenada had “piqued” the senator’s interest. Goldwater
reported, “Most Army and Navy units could not communicate with one another.
Nor could they coordinate with [Vice Adm. Joseph] Metcalf, the overall com-
mander. Communication between the two was, in fact, poor to almost nonexist-
ent. There were similar problems between the Army and Marine forces. The rea-
son was that all four services continue to purchase independent, incompatible
communications equipment.” Goldwater told Smith, “We have to do something.”21
According to Smith, the new chairman saw the work the staff had done when
Tower was chairman as “an opportunity to do something worthwhile.”
Goldwater also thought that the “synergism” between himself and Nunn made
reorganization “doable.” Goldwater decided to make this his highest priority
because “he saw an opportunity to finally make some changes that would have
a significant impact on downstream operational capabilities of the military.”22
Goldwater’s commitment to a long, demanding legislative campaign was
unusual for him. He did not like the details of major legislation. Former Arizona
congressman John Rhodes said, “That was not his thing. Barry has always
painted with a broad brush, and I say that without criticism.” Congressman
Morris K. Udall agreed: Details bored Goldwater. “He always focused on the big
picture.” A journalist observed, “Goldwater was not a enthusiastic legislator.
He preferred the public work of an evangelist to the private labor of pushing a
bill to passage.”23
Smith played a critical role in supporting Goldwater’s reorganization incli-
nations. The former air force pilot had served on the Joint Staff in the late s
and seen its crippling problems firsthand. Goldwater used Smith as a sounding
board, and the retired colonel urged the chairman on.
Smith was an affable storyteller of Irish ancestry with a great sense of hu-
mor. At work, he focused on getting the job done and did not worry about who
got the credit. Smith had many friends on Capitol Hill, and a few enemies. His
unyielding loyalty to Goldwater threatened some of the chairman’s friends
and subordinates. Smith sought to protect Goldwater from those who would
use the senator’s power for personal gain. In response, opportunists worked to
discredit Smith in Goldwater’s eyes. Struggles like this one for credibility and
influence with a major public figure are the hand-to-hand combat of Wash-
ington politics.
In addition to reassuring the chairman on reorganization, Smith promoted
Goldwater’s confidence in me. Smith had previously headed the air force’s Sen-
ate liaison office. During that time, he and I became well acquainted and trav-
eled together on trips. “Locher will do an unbelievably good job on reorganiza-
tion,” Smith reassured Goldwater. “He’s worked for Republicans and Democrats,
which will be a big plus when the committee addresses this issue.”24
The fact that I was a West Pointer also helped. Whenever Goldwater intro-
duced me, he would say, “This is Jim Locher. He graduated from West Point.”
In late January, Goldwater and Nunn agreed to be partners on reorgani-
zation. The chairman understood the long odds: “When Nunn and I began
to make our move, I wouldn’t have bet more than a sawbuck on our chances
of success. History and tradition were against us. Yet I had made up my mind
that I would not retire from the Senate without giving reorganization my
best shot.”25
Of the chairman’s decision, Nunn said, “He derived it independently him-
self.” Nunn “urged” Goldwater to pursue his plans, but their partnership “would
not have been successful if Goldwater had not in his own independent think-
ing come to the conclusion that things could be dramatically improved and
there were going to be big problems the way we were operating.”26
In two sessions, Goldwater and Nunn—assisted by Gerry Smith and two
of Nunn’s staffers, Arnold Punaro and Jeff Smith—formed their approach.
Goldwater later said he had “wanted to establish two things—equality and
trust.” They agreed to create a task force of SASC members to examine the
issues and draft legislation. To ensure a bipartisan effort and equality between
them, Goldwater proposed that he and Nunn cochair the task force.27
The cochairmen had to decide what to do about Jim McGovern, whom
Goldwater, at Tower’s urging, had kept on as the majority staff director. Knowing
Goldwater’s concerns about becoming committee leader, Tower had portrayed
McGovern as “somebody who has experience here, can provide continuity, who
knows the program, and somebody who will be very supportive.” Goldwater,
caught cold by his predecessor’s appeal, promised to retain McGovern as staff
director.28
Nunn briefed Goldwater on the staff director’s history of antireform activi-
ties: “McGovern is taking Locher’s work and giving it to Navy Secretary Lehman.
Lehman is editing it and sending it back through McGovern, who makes it look
like his work. If McGovern is heading up the staff on this issue, defense reorga-
nization is a dead duck.”29
Determined not to allow McGovern to interfere, Goldwater said, “Well, we’ll
just have to remove McGovern from the process. I’ll have Locher report directly
to me.”30
“Well, I’ll take my staff director, Arnold Punaro, out of it too, and we’ll just
have Jim Locher report to you and me,” Nunn graciously replied. “Is that all
right with you, Barry?”
“Fine,” Goldwater answered.
Nunn proposed this evenhanded approach so no one could complain, and
it did not look as if they were singling out McGovern. Punaro supported re-
form, but removing him was the price that had to be paid to exclude McGovern.
Punaro had originated the idea and discussed it with Gerry Smith.31 Nunn
praised Punaro’s sacrifice, saying: “The poison pill he was swallowing was also
going to have to be swallowed by Jim McGovern. The two staff directors were
not going to be in the chain of command on this project.”
Of my role, Nunn said: “The background that Jim Locher and I had to-
gether gave me tremendous confidence that he would be objective, analytical,
fair, and bipartisan. I had no hesitancy at all about not only agreeing, but I
think recommending, that he be the person to lead the staff. In effect, Jim had
the confidence uniquely of both Goldwater as chairman and me as the ranking
Democrat. That was a very important element in this. Nobody else could have
filled that role.”
Nunn also had confidence in Gerry Smith and his ability to facilitate a good
relationship between the two leaders. In case of Republican opposition to
Goldwater’s efforts, Nunn figured, “Gerry would be able to keep me and the re-
organization staff informed about what was going on on the Republican side.”32
Near the end of January, Goldwater and Nunn designated me as the head
of the task force’s staff. Goldwater assigned Rick Finn and Barbara Brown, my
secretary, from the Republican staff, and Nunn selected Jeff Smith from the mi-
nority staff as the fourth member. The chairman instructed Brown and me to
work full-time on reorganization. He assigned my foreign policy and defense
budget responsibilities to others. Goldwater and Nunn expected Finn and Smith
to devote  percent of their time to task force work. Finn, a member of the
larger majority staff, worked nearly full-time on this assignment. This proved
critical, because Smith could allot only a small portion of his time due to the
press of other minority staff business. While Punaro was not in our reorgani-
zation chain of command, Finn, Smith, and I kept him informed as our work
progressed and occasionally sought his advice and assistance.
On January , Goldwater wrote a letter to McGovern outlining his plans.
A chairman usually does not write to his staff director, but Goldwater appar-
ently did not want to discuss this sore subject with McGovern. He also probably
wanted a written record of his instructions. “Jim Locher,” explained Goldwater,
“whom I’ve known for some time and who has a keen interest in this subject is,
in my opinion and Sam’s also the most knowledgeable man we have available,
and is the man I want to be the staff leader. He should . . . report directly to
Senator Nunn and me.” Given McGovern’s history of providing the navy cop-
ies of the committee’s work, Goldwater bluntly told him: “I don’t want any
staff leaks. I don’t want the services to know any more about our studies than
we want them to know.”33
McGovern fumed about this arrangement, blaming me for Goldwater’s de-
cisions. Reorganization was the most important issue the SASC had addressed
in several decades, and Goldwater was denying him, the most senior staffer, a
role. The staff director would also be less able to protect the interests of the
navy and his close friend, Secretary Lehman.
On January , Goldwater and Nunn informed members of their plans

through a “Dear Committee Colleague” letter. Although they mentioned add-
ing members to the task force, Goldwater and Nunn delayed taking that step.
The two leaders figured that they could count on only two or three other sena-
tors to support reform. They would need to take a deliberate approach to the
long uphill struggle ahead.34
Goldwater and Nunn formed a powerful team. Both had strong conserva-
tive and prodefense credentials. But in other respects, they were opposites.
Goldwater was bold, almost reckless. Nunn was cautious, almost too careful.
Goldwater made up his mind quickly. Nunn decided slowly. Goldwater relied
on instinct and feel. Nunn depended on hard work and superior information.
Their opposite characteristics complicated the work of opponents. Nunn could
outthink you. Goldwater could outshoot you. Nunn could remain cool while
Goldwater flashed his temper. Their opponents had to prepare for both Nunn’s
proficient jabs and Goldwater’s knockout punch.
While Goldwater and Nunn were planning their approach, CSIS study leaders
revealed the results of their work in press interviews. Although CSIS would not
release its study until the end of February, it wanted to capture the new Con-
gress’ attention.
On January , , two days after President Reagan’s second inaugura-
tion, the New York Times reported on the study in a front-page article, “Over-
haul Is Urged for Top Military.” The article began, “A diverse group of experts,
including some of the members of Congress who are most influential on mili-
tary matters, has agreed to push this year for a sweeping restructuring of the
American military operation.” The article then summarized the study’s thrust:
“Current military organization is paralyzed by rivalries between the Army, Navy,
Air Force and Marine Corps and is the underlying cause of bloated budgets,
poor combat readiness and a lack of coordination in operations.”35
The Times highlighted the report’s proposal “to give the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff new powers as a presidential adviser in an effort to override
squabbling among the military services.” The article described recommenda-
tions, to be published the following month, to “strengthen the powers of the re-
gional military commanders who conduct combat operations, streamline the
budgeting and planning operations of the Defense Department and alter the role
of Congress in handling the military budget.”
The Times also reported that Secretary Lehman “called the Georgetown
proposals ‘a very foolish way to organize a democracy’s decision-making,’ ar-
guing that they would centralize too much power in Washington and diminish
civilian control.”
The day the New York Times article appeared, Pentagon spokesman Michael
Burch said, “We may consider some reforms. But, we basically think the Joint
Chiefs of Staff structure as it exists is adequate.” Burch described Weinberger

as “very pleased with the service and contributions the Joint Chiefs give him.”36
About a week later, two newspaper editorials supported the study. “The
trouble with the ossified U.S. military command structure is that too many
vested interests have a vital stake in the status quo,” The Atlanta Constitution
argued. “What Defense Department bureaucrats and the chiefs of the various
services have come to defend best is their own turf, not to mention their own
posteriors.” The editorial said that Weinberger, “rather than trying to tame
the beast, has allowed it to graze unchecked in the green pastures of the U.S.
Treasury.”37
A Chicago Tribune editorial advised: “Mr. Reagan should heed this [CSIS]
report. His and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger’s next four years should
be devoted in large part to implementing recommendations like these.”38
The short burst of press attention produced a standoff. The study received
only modest attention, and the newspapers gave equal space to Pentagon criti-
cisms.
On February , Goldwater and Nunn wrote to Weinberger announcing
their plans and soliciting his cooperation: “It is our sincere hope that the task
force, and eventually the full committee, will have the opportunity to work
closely with you in an objective analysis of potential improvements to organi-
zational arrangements and decision making procedures within the Department
of Defense and within the Congress.” Noting the long-term nature of the prob-
lems, the senators emphasized, “You should be assured that the committee’s
study is not a criticism of you, of any other official of the Department of De-
fense, or of this administration.”
Alluding to the Pentagon’s unfavorable press statements on the CSIS study,
Goldwater and Nunn continued: “We have not yet taken a position on any of
the issues that the committee has studied. This does not appear to be the case
with certain vocal elements of the Department of Defense. In general, we are
troubled by the negative public stance that the Department of Defense has taken
on various organizational proposals that are beginning to surface in the de-
fense academic community. These premature reactions are likely to complicate
efforts by the Congress and executive branch to develop a cooperative approach
on this subject. In addition, we are disturbed by reports that some officials of
the Department of Defense are working behind the scenes to discredit the work
of private organizations that are studying these important topics.”
The letter ended: “Candidly, we intend to use the answers [to the  au-
thorization report questions] due by March  and the department’s prelimi-
nary reaction to the Center for Strategic and International Studies draft report
as key yardsticks in assessing whether the Department of Defense is prepared
to enter into a constructive dialogue with the committee on organizational and
decision making issues.”39
Goldwater and Nunn believed that the SASC staff study provided the best
vehicle for examining problems. My two bosses directed me to refine each
chapter and submit them for their review. I met separately with them to dis-
cuss each submission and obtain guidance for additional research and revi-
sions.
Goldwater would complete his review within twenty-four hours and was
always anxious to meet with me early in the morning for our discussion. The
study fascinated him. For the first time, he had a comprehensive framework for
problems he had seen over five decades. A strong believer in using history to
illuminate current problems, he liked the study’s emphasis on historical analy-
sis. Goldwater marked up each chapter with comments and questions. Of the
chapter on the unified commands, he wrote, “A good, very good study but it
frightens me—there are places I see no easy answers for. Thanks—It’s really
great.”40
Gerry Smith had warned me about the chairman’s early morning work
habits. Goldwater would get to work after they arrived in the office at : A.M.
A few minutes later, the chairman would typically say to him, “Get Dole on the
phone.”41
“Senator, he’s not here,” Smith would say.
“Well,” the chairman would fume, “where in the hell is he?”
“He’s probably in bed like every other normal senator around here,” Smith
would answer. “How many senators do you think are sitting in their office at
: in the morning looking to call somebody?”
Goldwater enjoyed the early morning hours and did his best work then. He
read newspapers and incoming mail first, and then he would fire off responses,
including letters to newspaper editors. The chairman fired off letters at a pro-
lific rate, not long epistles, but one-paragraph zingers—a dozen or so each day.
When I arrived for our seven o’clock meetings, Goldwater was just finishing
his correspondence.
During our first morning meeting, I was surprised to see the senator’s door
open with a secretary sitting just outside, noisily typing letters he had just dic-
tated while Goldwater monitored her activity. She brought him the finished
letters and he signed them and stuffed them into their envelopes. Then, grab-
bing his cane, Goldwater asked me to accompany him out into the marble-
floored hallway on the fourth floor of the Russell Senate Office Building, where
he dropped the letters down the mail chute.
The senator’s performance of these clerical tasks amazed me. “Is there
something special about these letters?” I asked.
“I want certain letters sent exactly as I dictated them,” he replied. “If I give
my office staff a chance, they’ll revise my letters to make them more diplomatic
and remove the cuss words. Now, that’s okay for much of my correspondence,
but certain letters I don’t want altered in any way. What I say in these letters is
what I mean, and how I say it is how I mean to say it. To ensure nothing is
changed, I have to watch those letters like a hawk.”
Goldwater’s explanation made me think of a letter he wrote in April, ,
that received considerable attention. Written to William Casey, director of cen-
tral intelligence, the letter addressed the CIA’s mining of Nicaraguan harbors.
The Washington Post printed the entire letter under the headline, “Goldwater
Writes CIA Director Scorching Letter.” The letter began, “Dear Bill . . . I am
pissed off . . . this is no way to run a railroad . . . I don’t like this. I don’t like it one
bit from the president or from you. . . . [I]n the future, if anything like this hap-
pens, I’m going to raise one hell of a lot of fuss about it in public.”42 It must
have been one of the letters the senator sealed and mailed himself.
As Goldwater’s commitment to reorganization became publicly known, ac-
tive and retired officers began to lobby him incessantly. “They’re after me again,”
he would say sadly. “Several more friends of mine, retired generals, called today
to tell me, ‘You’re making a terrible mistake. You’ll regret what you’re doing.’”
I once said to Goldwater: “You have always loved the military and have
great respect for military leaders. They’re all telling you reorganization isn’t
needed. How are you able to take on the entire military establishment and your
friends? It must take a tremendous amount of courage.”
“I wouldn’t say it has taken courage,” he replied. “You know, when you
believe in something, courage doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. If you think
you’re right, then go ahead and do it. And if you’re wrong, you’re wrong. I’ve
had more damn experiences like that than you can count. I just have this gut
feeling about defense reorganization, and it is growing stronger.”43
On March , Weinberger submitted to Goldwater and Cong. Les Aspin, the new
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon’s answers to
the organization questions posed in the preceding year’s defense authorization
bill. This -page, one-and-one-half-pound package communicated that Pen-
tagon thinking had not changed. Senior officials remained opposed to reform.44
The Armed Forces Journal reported, “Secretary of Defense Caspar Wein-
berger, the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff are agreed on one point—Capitol Hill proposals to reor-
ganize the U.S. military establishment aren’t necessary.” The Journal added that
Weinberger and the service secretaries “suggest that if any tinkering is neces-
sary, it should be from within DoD and not from Congress, however well-
intentioned.”45
The questions did not spark the objective review for which proreform mem-
bers had been hoping. But all was not lost. Three unified commanders—Adm.
Bill Crowe of the Pacific Command and the army’s Gen. Bernie Rogers of the
European Command and Gen. Wallace Nutting of the Readiness Command—
provided ammunition for the staff study by breaking with the Pentagon line.
Crowe spoke out most forcefully. He questioned “whether the unified com-
mander has the requisite authority to ensure the readiness of his forces and, in
times of crisis (or hostilities), to bring his subordinate commands together with-
out undue disruption to conduct timely, imaginative and efficient operations.”
The admiral said that regulations imposing “single-service operational chains
of command within the unified commands require the unified command to
remain a rather loose confederation of single-service forces.” Crowe complained
about service dominance of resource decisions: “On occasion the results of
major service decisions, not previously coordinated with me, have affected my
ability to execute USPACOM [U.S. Pacific Command] strategy.”46
I had heard Crowe privately express these views in Hawaii, but his public
outspokenness was surprising, given that senior Washington officials were eye-
ing him for the top military job. In January, Newsweek reported: “In June, ac-
cording to Pentagon and White House sources, General John W. Vessey will
step down from his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after serv-
ing only half of his second two-year term. . . . The leading candidate to succeed
Vessey is Adm. William J. Crowe . . . (a Navy man is due to get the job under
normal rotation).”47
Crowe’s frontrunner status was believable, given the stories of how he had
impressed Reagan during the president’s visit to Hawaii nine months earlier.
But it was too early to assume that Crowe would be the next chairman. The
selection process for such positions is long and grueling with many unexpected
turns. Furthermore, the admiral was speaking out on reorganization. Wein-
berger opposed reorganization, and experts viewed Reagan’s silence as unquali-
fied support for his secretary’s position.
In late February, the admiral came to Washington to testify to the SASC on
the defense budget. I arranged for the two senators to meet privately with Crowe
to hear his reorganization views. I briefed Goldwater and Nunn on my meet-
ings with him in Hawaii the previous October. Both senators looked forward to
talking with Crowe.
Minutes before the meeting started, Goldwater called me and said: “Jim,
I’m in so much pain from my arthritis I can’t come to the meeting with Crowe.
You tell Sam to go ahead without me. You and he can fill me in later.”
When Nunn arrived, he didn’t like the idea of holding the meeting with-
out the chairman. He understood that he and Goldwater needed to do and be
seen doing things together. “Okay, we’ll go ahead with this meeting with Crowe,”
the ranking Democrat said. “But from now on, if Senator Goldwater’s health
does not permit him to attend, we’ll put off the meeting until he’s ready to go.”
For years, arthritis had indeed taken a tremendous toll on Goldwater’s
health and stamina. Knowing that the workload and pressures of reorganiza-
tion would intensify, Nunn was concerned about the chairman’s staying power.
After an early meeting with Goldwater, Nunn told Jeff Smith: “This is so impor-
tant, and I really want to do this right. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to carry
the burden because I don’t think Barry is physically up to it.”48
“Nunn was clearly worried,” said Smith. “Was he going to take this on,
then . . . have the whole thing fall to him? He wouldn’t have the votes and Barry
wouldn’t be able to deliver enough Republicans. Was this going to be a situa-
tion where Nunn took all the beatings and got nothing done?”49
Crowe’s thinking impressed Nunn, as I knew it would. After being briefed
on the session, Goldwater also viewed Crowe favorably. The two senators agreed
that if reorganization legislation were ever enacted, Crowe would be the ideal
JCS chairman to implement it. Goldwater and Nunn instructed us that when
they went to the White House to meet with Reagan or his national security
adviser, the last bullet on their talking points should suggest that Crowe would
make an excellent chairman.
Unknown to Goldwater, Nunn, or the other committee members, Crowe
had received static at his Hawaii headquarters from people in the Pentagon
about his written answers to Capitol Hill’s questions. “Oh my God, do you re-
ally believe all that?” he was asked. Callers also advised the admiral: “You are
really sticking your neck in something. You shouldn’t do that. Because there is
just too much opposition back in Washington, and they won’t appreciate you
speaking out.”50
Although the SASC’s antireform faction had the upper hand, its members were
concerned about the Goldwater-Nunn partnership. They were determined to
break it. McGovern was quietly scheming to get Goldwater to step aside as task
force cochairman in favor of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas). The scheme would
end the bipartisan cochairmanship. There would be only one chairman:
Gramm.
The SASC Republicans and McGovern claimed that Nunn was taking ad-
vantage of Goldwater and intended to use defense reorganization to embarrass
the Reagan administration and Republican Party. These fabrications became the
rallying cries of the Republican opposition. They were repeated so often that many
observers believed them.
On Thursday night, May , during a particularly long legislative week,
McGovern made his move. Goldwater, dispirited by a Senate vote to cut the de-
fense budget and worried about the vigor of his leadership, was suffering from
an arthritis attack. Although the chairman had a high pain threshold, these
attacks shortened his attention span and made him willing to go along rather
than argue.
Succumbing to McGovern’s arguments, Goldwater signed a letter to Nunn
stating: “I am establishing an ad hoc task force that will consist of five majority
and four minority members. Senator Gramm has agreed to chair this group
and report directly and frequently to me. . . . I have asked Senators Cohen,
Quayle, Wilson and Denton to fill out our side.” Goldwater also sent a letter to
each of the task force’s five Republicans.51
A flabbergasted Nunn called me the following afternoon after receiving
his copy through the Senate mail system. In shock, Rick Finn, Jeff Smith, and I
read the letter in Nunn’s office.
“What do you think is behind this?” Nunn asked me.
“Senator, as you know, antireform Republicans are trying to make reorga-
nization a partisan issue,” I replied. “We’ve heard that they’re saying that you
and Congressman Aspin are conspiring to make this a Democratic issue, that
you are taking advantage of Senator Goldwater, and that you are dominating
the committee staff. I don’t have the slightest idea if the chairman heard any of
these lies or why he signed that letter.”
“If Gramm takes over, we can forget about reorganizing the Pentagon,”
Nunn predicted.
After the meeting, I called Gerry Smith in Goldwater’s office. “I need to see
the chairman right away. He’s signed a letter putting Senator Gramm in charge
of reorganization—”
“What?” Smith said, cutting me off. “The boss hasn’t said a word about
changing his approach. Where did you see this letter?”
“I saw Senator Nunn’s copy. He was blindsided. I don’t know why the chair-
man has done this. Do you have any ideas?”
“I think I smell a rat,” replied Smith, “and that rat’s name is McGovern.”
“The same thought crossed my mind,” I volunteered.
“The chairman is traveling today, but he’ll be back in the office first thing
Monday morning. I’ll put you on his calendar for  A.M.”
Nunn also tried to talk to Goldwater on Friday. Having found the chair-
man unavailable, he fired off a letter to him criticizing McGovern and denying
that he and Aspin were working together. The closing paragraph argued: “Barry,
I believe if this [reorganization] is delegated to a task force not headed by the
two of us, the chances of a meaningful bill emerging this year are greatly re-
duced. . . . If this issue becomes partisan, the chances of passage will be nearly
zero. I am afraid we are heading rapidly in that direction. I did want you to
know my feelings.”52
As Finn and I headed back to our offices, we pondered our future. “If Gramm
becomes the task force chairman and our boss, we’re in deep trouble,” Finn
predicted. “Moreover, if we lose our direct connection to Goldwater, McGovern
will make our lives unpleasant, to put it mildly.”
By the time we reached my cluttered office we both were beginning to think
about where we would go if we had to leave the committee. “We won’t be able
to find jobs anywhere in the defense community,” I said. “The military is so
worked up about reform that no organization will risk ruining its relationship
with the Pentagon by hiring us.”
With reorganization and our futures hanging in the balance, Saturday and
Sunday passed slowly.
When I arrived at Senator Goldwater’s office Monday morning, I knew that
the coming minutes would be momentous. If I could not convince Goldwater
to change his mind, our cause would be lost. The seriousness of the situation
demanded a boldly candid conversation. “Reorganization is dead if Senator
Gramm takes over the task force,” I told him. “Navy Secretary John Lehman,
who is—as you know—strongly antireform, has influenced Senator Gramm
on this issue. Senator Gramm and Senator Nunn will be at loggerheads. Noth-
ing good will come from that stalemate.”
“Why are you stepping aside in favor of Senator Gramm?” I inquired.
“I’ve been informed that Senator Nunn is planning to make reorganiza-
tion a partisan issue and that he’s going to embarrass President Reagan and
Secretary Weinberger with all of the information that the staff study is devel-
oping,” Goldwater replied. “I’ve been urged to appoint a young, energetic Re-
publican like Gramm to fight off Nunn’s partisan attack.” Goldwater explained
the influence of the Senate vote to cut defense spending, “I was disappointed
that I had not been able to make more persuasive arguments and turn the vote.
At that moment, the call for a younger senator to protect the interests of the
Republican Party seemed like a damn good idea.”
After hearing Goldwater’s rationale, I said: “Mr. Chairman, for months,
I’ve witnessed every move that you and Senator Nunn have made on reorgani-
zation. At no time have I seen Senator Nunn do anything of a partisan nature.
In fact, he has always bent over backward to make certain that there was not
even the slightest appearance of party politics. Moreover, throughout the en-
tire process, Senator Nunn has been highly deferential to your desires on how
to proceed. The push to get you to step aside has nothing to do with Senator
Nunn and partisan politics and everything to do with attempting to break your
partnership with him. If this partnership is broken, the Pentagon will defeat
reorganization.”
We sat in silence for several minutes after I finished. Goldwater studied me.
He was measuring me as much as my arguments. My boss—with his chiseled
jaw, horn-rimmed glasses, and white hair—had a legendary face. His weath-
ered hands, with an Indian tattoo on his left one, were even more fascinating.
He held his hands close to his face as he scrutinized me.
Finally, Goldwater broke the silence, slowly lamenting, “My God, what have
I done?” Seized by the need to correct his mistake, Goldwater declared, “I’m
going to remain cochairman of the task force.” Now fully back in the saddle,
his voice swelled into a stern, vigorous instruction, “Forget all of the commo-
tion of the last several days and get back to work on that damn staff study.” He
wrote to each senator who had received his earlier letter to tell them of his
change of plans.
Two weeks passed before McGovern again tried to get Gramm appointed
as task force chairman. Chris Cowart, the committee’s chief clerk, found a let-
ter making this assignment in a stack of minor administrative matters that
Goldwater had signed at McGovern’s request. She brought me a copy.
Goldwater was on the Senate floor, and Nunn was leaving his office to
join him. I gave Nunn the letter. When he showed it to Goldwater, the chair-
man exclaimed, “I’ll be goddamned! I didn’t realize I had signed anything
like that.”53
McGovern must have felt Goldwater’s wrath because he and Carl Smith
rushed off in a panic to retrieve the letters from the Senate post office.
The rest of the staff gathered in the SASC’s main hearing room to discuss
this bizarre and disturbing development. After expressing our disbelief, we
laughed when someone said, “I can picture Jim McGovern and Carl Smith, down
on their hands and knees in the mailroom, madly looking for those eighteen
letters.”
Afterward, I asked Gerry Smith, “Why doesn’t Senator Goldwater fire
McGovern? Why is he tolerating such insubordination?”
“I don’t really know,” he replied. “Probably because he gave his word to
Tower that he would keep McGovern. Maybe, he wants to show that he’s up to
controlling his staff director. But I don’t think that the boss understands the
depths that McGovern will go to. You know, the chairman always tries to see
the good in people. When we most recently talked about McGovern, he said,
‘Well, he really isn’t that bad.’ Goldwater knows that McGovern can’t always
be trusted. I said to him, ‘You know, you rely on McGovern an awful lot, and
he’s not above doing things that are not right in your name.’ He said, ‘Well, he
has a little larceny in him. I’ll keep an eye on him.’”54
The retired colonel added wryly, “Goldwater thinks he can manage
McGovern.” Smith and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.
McGovern’s latest scheme convinced Goldwater and Nunn that they needed to
settle the task force leadership and membership. They added seven members—
four Republicans and three Democrats. Maintaining a true bipartisan approach
required adding an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, but Goldwater
and Nunn decided not to aggravate the committee’s Republicans, who were
already showing antireform tendencies.
The two senators decided that the committee’s antireform faction should
be well represented on the task force. Goldwater was determined to add Bill
Cohen, and he accepted Dan Quayle, Pete Wilson, and Phil Gramm as the rep-
resentatives of the opposition. Nunn added Jeff Bingaman, Carl Levin, and Ted
Kennedy, each of whom had an open mind on the subject.
I liked Gramm and thought that meeting with him to explain reorganiza-
tion issues might be useful. His military legislative assistant, Alan Ptak, had
been a friend for many years. Before coming to the Senate, Ptak worked in the
CIA’s legislative affairs office. One of his duties was serving as the agency’s liai-
son with the SASC, where I served as his principal contact. Ptak arranged for
me to meet with Gramm on the morning of June . Formerly a Boll Weevil
Democrat, the Texas senator switched parties in January, , after resigning
the House seat to which he had just been elected. He was reelected to his old
seat as a Republican in a special election held one month later. In the next gen-
eral election, Gramm ran for the Senate seat vacated by Tower. Smart and savvy,
Gramm quickly demonstrated that he was a political force to be reckoned with.
His doctorate in economics and early career as a college professor found ex-
pression in his highly visible work on the complex Gramm-Rudman-Hollings
budget deficit legislation.
I explained to Gramm DoD’s organizational problems and why the ser-
vices, especially the navy, resisted reform. Gramm appeared unpersuaded. He
responded with some of Lehman’s themes. The Texas senator and navy sec-
retary were building a close relationship. Lehman had designated several Texas
ports as new locations for navy ships as part of the Strategic Homeporting
Initiative. The secretary’s decision generated a political windfall for the new
senator. Not surprisingly, Gramm was receptive to Lehman’s arguments on
reorganization.
Even though my meeting with Gramm failed to produce anything tangible,
I appreciated the chance to express my views to him. He did not agree that day,
but maybe I gave him something to think about. Moreover, I did not walk away
from the session empty-handed. Gramm laid down a challenge that I could
use—like a coach—to motivate a key player on our team. As the meeting ended,
Gramm said, “Tell Senator Nunn that I am going to be smarter on reorganiza-
tion than anybody on the committee.” Knowing how the competitive Georgia
senator would react, I did tell him. If Nunn had maintained a locker in the
Senate, I would have taped Gramm’s challenge on it.
The first six months of Goldwater and Nunn’s examination of reorganiza-
tion had been a roller-coaster ride. Near disasters followed moments of great
promise. In the pivotal development, the two senators were forming a strong
bond. Although Goldwater and Nunn always had a good relationship, their
leadership roles forced them to work more closely and depend on each other.
The help that Nunn gave Goldwater in his early critical months as chairman
catalyzed the building of a stronger relationship.55
The two senators quickly became comfortable communicating openly and
candidly with each other. Nunn characterized their discussions: “He and I al-
ways shot straight. If I said or thought something strongly and I told him, Barry
would always appreciate that. I never did go around him. I never did try to go
through staff or any of that business. He knew when I told him something it
was going to be my frank and honest opinion of it.”56
22. Senators Goldwater and Nunn, chairman and ranking minority member
of the Senate Armed Services Committee. (U.S. Senate photo.)
Attacks on Goldwater and Nunn’s partnership tested their relationship.

Rough moments of doubt occurred, but a strong, more resilient relationship
emerged from these crises. Before long, they developed extraordinary trust in
each other. “Goldwater developed more trust in me than anybody else on the
committee,” Nunn recalled. In an early June letter to Nunn, Goldwater wrote,
“I have, in you, a ranking member whose ability and dedication I could not
conceive of a way on which to improve.”57
Looking back on the partnership, Goldwater said: “In going into this battle,
I placed absolute trust in Nunn. He never disappointed me, not once. With Sam,
I’d take on the devil in hell.”58
The two senators instinctively divided the work to maximize their individual
strengths. Goldwater focused on shaping the major thrusts of reform and serv-
ing as a bulwark against the unending condemnation from the Pentagon and
its allies. “Because of his credibility and reputation for being so pro-military,”
Nunn said, “nobody was going to be able to say of what Goldwater was cham-
pioning, ‘It was subversive or that it was anti-military, or he was coming from
some position of trying to harm the military.’ The only thing they could say
was, ‘We don’t agree with him.’ Goldwater was immune from any kind of at-
tack from the right. So, having Goldwater out front was crucial.”59
While Goldwater kept the work on course and protected the project, the
ranking Democrat zeroed in on more detailed analyses and solutions. Nunn’s
work would give full expression to the organization principles that he and
Goldwater were formulating. The Georgia senator possessed exceptional ana-
lytical skills, and he had studied Pentagon problems for years.
Goldwater emerged as the moral force behind reorganization, and Nunn
became the intellectual force. Nunn’s contribution made the senators’ work
profound; Goldwater’s made it possible.
Both reform proponents and opponents understood the importance of the
Goldwater-Nunn partnership. If it were broken and partisan politics injected
as a major factor, everyone knew that reorganization would die. If the sena-
tors’ partnership remained solid, reorganizing the Pentagon might be possible.
John G. Kester, a savvy proreformer, did not think so. In February, , he
predicted: “Congress will hold hearings on reorganizing the Pentagon; they will
end in stalemate and minor adjustments.”60
Opponents would hammer furiously at the link between Goldwater and
Nunn. Having twice failed to get Goldwater to abandon his task force cochair-
manship, they were likely to abandon that tactic. With the first meeting of the
nine-member Task Force on Defense Organization approaching, reformers
wondered what new attacks their opponents would mount.
CHAPTER 12
Weinberger Stonewalls
If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself,
you are certain in every battle to be in peril.
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
W hile Goldwater and Nunn were searching for ways to give momentum
to defense reorganization, Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger just
wanted the issue to go away. The secretary was never a behind-the-scenes an-
tireform activist. Initially, he opposed reorganization only moderately. As time
passed, his opposition grew, and he stubbornly resisted until the end. Wein-
berger doggedly defended the Pentagon’s performance and organization. A
journalist noted, “Weinberger fought more assiduously against the percep-
tion of problems in the Pentagon than he did against the problems themselves.”1
The secretary resisted reorganization by stonewalling. He could not have
selected a worse strategy. In doing so he played right into the hands of the re-
formers. His in-your-face rigidity created both the incentive and the ideal envi-
ronment for the reformers to mount a crusade. Had Weinberger shown some
flexibility during the first four years of debate, he could have undermined, if
not curtailed, congressional efforts. Had he agreed to a few meaningful reforms
and then asked Congress for three or four years to evaluate them before taking
further steps, Weinberger could have defused the issue. Nunn later judged that
if the secretary had compromised early, “it would have taken twenty years to
achieve needed reforms.”2 An early compromise from Weinberger would have
appealed to Capitol Hill, where a solid reason for delaying action on a controver-
sial measure is often popular. Moreover, in a less confrontational environment,
Senate reformers would not have been able to hold the attention of colleagues
long enough to educate them on reorganization.
Weinberger Stonewalls 235
Weinberger proved to be an infuriating opponent. An adversary who evokes

a strong emotional response always helps to rally the troops. Weinberger played
that role to perfection. By refusing to admit the existence of so much as a single
problem, he exasperated even members who were neutral on reorganization.
In Washington politics, author Hedrick Smith wrote, “Credibility—trust—
is the most important key to survival and influence. . . . [T]he advocate who is
too parochial, too partisan, or too political to be credible is not heard or heeded
as time wears on.” Weinberger was all three. His overzealous advocacy rein-
forced his low credibility on Capitol Hill. Added Smith, “Congress lost faith in
Weinberger’s credibility” during his second year as secretary.3
Weinberger’s attitude encouraged other Pentagon officials, especially Navy
Secretary John Lehman, to become unyielding antireform activists. The viru-
lence of the Pentagon’s campaign on Capitol Hill alienated many members of
Congress and produced a backlash on the National Security Council staff.
A San Francisco native, Weinberger, who majored in government, graduated

from Harvard College in  and Harvard Law School three years later. His
undergraduate honors included magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and presi-
dent of the Harvard Crimson newspaper. Weinberger credits his long hours of
writing at the Crimson as “instrumental in my learning to express, both orally
and in writing, my pronounced views on both domestic and foreign policy.”4
His editorials were “fierce, biting, heavily ironic. One side was completely right
and the other completely wrong.” The editorial chairman warned Weinberger,
“It is impossible to have your editorial message effective unless the pill of bias is
coated with a little bit of the sugar of reason.” The undergraduate spokesman
for conservative, anti–New Deal positions saw “the world in black and white.”5
Having failed an eye examination for the Royal Canadian Air Force dur-
ing law school, after graduation Weinberger enlisted as a private in the U.S.
Army. Following officer candidate school, the new second lieutenant was as-
signed as a platoon leader with the st Infantry Division. He spent almost
three years patrolling New Guinea jungles, rose in rank to captain, and com-
manded an infantry company before being reassigned to General MacArthur’s
intelligence staff.
After the war, Weinberger clerked for a federal appeals judge for two years
before starting his law practice. In  he was elected to the California As-
sembly as a Republican from San Francisco and served three two-year terms.
Journalists named him the most effective legislator in .6 “In the legisla-
ture,” an acquaintance recalled, “he could be abrasive, stepping on toes, but
no one really disliked him. But not many trusted him either. There was the
feeling of hidden ruthlessness in his ambition.”7 A state official said Weinberger
“was considered a leader of the liberal wing of the party in those days.” Others
described him and his San Francisco political associates as moderates.
Weinberger was so fervently moderate that his friends could not believe he had
been a conservative in college. In , Weinberger lost the Republican pri-
mary for California attorney general and never again ran for elected office.8
From  to , Weinberger hosted a weekly San Francisco television
show on public affairs called “Profile: Bay Area,” and remained active in Re-
publican politics. He chaired the party’s state central committee during Rich-
ard Nixon’s defeat in the  gubernatorial race and, two years later, the
bitter fight between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller in the  Cali-
fornia presidential primary. Weinberger backed Rockefeller. In  he backed
moderate George Christopher, a former San Francisco mayor, over conserva-
tive Ronald Reagan in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Weinberger
served as Christopher’s campaign chairman in northern California “on the
grounds of old friendship and as part of the continuing battle to beat down
the right.”
In , overlooking earlier political battles, Governor Reagan appointed
Weinberger chairman of the Commission on California State Government and
Economy, an independent agency that investigates government operations. In
February, , Reagan asked him to serve as the state’s director of finance.
Reagan and Weinberger soon developed a close association. Weinberger worked
“tirelessly and unswervingly” to achieve the budget cuts Reagan had prom-
ised. He was “the kind of official who doggedly carried out his superior’s wishes
without much questioning them.”
In January, , President Nixon appointed Weinberger chairman of the
Federal Trade Commission and tasked him with reforming the agency. Wein-
berger hired a young lawyer, William Howard Taft IV, from consumer advocate
Ralph Nader’s staff to work for him. Throughout Weinberger’s career in Wash-
ington, Taft remained at his side. Weinberger moved “swiftly” and “ruthlessly”
to implement massive reform. His operating method was described as “Get the
brief. Set a course right away. Be tough with the opposition. Never waver. Make
the president look good.”9
In July, , Nixon designated Weinberger as George Shultz’s deputy di-
rector at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). When Shultz became
secretary of the treasury in , Weinberger moved up to the top job. He se-
lected Frank Carlucci, a foreign-service officer, as his deputy. When Nixon or-
dered government spending cut, Weinberger’s “enthusiasm for the task knew
no bounds,” and defense spending steadily declined as a result. He earned the
nickname “Cap the Knife” for his budget-cutting prowess.10
In February, , Weinberger moved to the Department of Health, Edu-
cation, and Welfare as its secretary, taking Carlucci along to serve as his deputy.
A department official observed: “His technique is to repeat his point, to adopt a
line and not deviate. He’d listen to an argument, but then respond by reiterat-
ing his original position. Infuriating, but effective.”11
Weinberger left government service in August, , and joined the Bechtel
Corporation, a multinational company based in California, where George Shultz
served as president. Weinberger was vice president and general counsel at
Bechtel when Reagan selected him to serve as defense secretary. Weinberger’s
political and business credentials were impressive, but he had “little background
in defense.”12
His selection did not please conservative Republicans, many of whom re-
membered that he had backed Rockefeller over Goldwater in . Journalist
Robert Toth called Weinberger “a professed conservative who cannot rid him-
self of a liberal tinge.”13 Meanwhile, conservatives criticized his lack of defense
experience and moderate positions and feared he would bring budget cutting
to a Pentagon they viewed as underfunded. Weinberger’s standing dropped even
farther when he named Carlucci—neither a defense expert nor a member of
the conservative circle—as his deputy.
A few days after the December  announcement of his selection, a
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak commentary in the Washington Post entitled
“Why Weinberger? Why Carlucci?” asked, “Why is Reagan getting a secretary
and deputy secretary at defense who both need remedial courses in military
nuts and bolts? Why did he pick a reputed budget-cutter (“Cap the Knife”) to
rebuild the nation’s leaky defense structure?”14
On January , three days after Weinberger’s Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee confirmation hearing, the two pundits opined, “Unease within the de-
fense community over Caspar Weinberger has blossomed into panic.” They cited
his “nearly total ignorance on defense questions, which was fully revealed in
his Senate confirmation hearing.” The columnists criticized Weinberger’s ap-
pointment of his longtime assistant Taft, “a Washington lawyer who knows
even less about defense than Weinberger and Carlucci,” to head the Pentagon
transition team.15
If there was panic, it was short-lived. Senator John Tower, the new SASC
chairman, kept Weinberger’s confirmation on track and produced a unanimous
committee vote in favor of his nomination. Commentators who believed that
Weinberger’s nomination could be undermined may not have understood his
high standing with Reagan. “You can’t overstate how close Reagan and
Weinberger are,” said a Republican leader who helped select the cabinet. Reagan
referred to Weinberger as “my Disraeli.”16 Moreover, the Republican Senate was
not about to undermine the president.
A leading conservative, Sen. Jesse Helms (R–North Carolina), carried the
fight against Weinberger to the Senate floor. He launched a forty-minute
attack in which he called the Weinberger and Carlucci nominations “particu-
larly troublesome not only to me, who will vote against them, but also to a great
number of my colleagues who plan to vote for confirmation.” Helms added that
“Mr. Weinberger has yet to demonstrate . . . that he has either that resolution or
that vision” required to end Soviet nuclear superiority. He charged that nu-
merous defense experts believed Weinberger comprehended neither “the de-
cline of U.S. military power, nor the rise of Soviet strength.” Of Weinberger’s
confirmation testimony, Helms said, “He did not seem to have a theoretical
grasp” of the issues. In the end, however, only Helms and fellow North Caro-
lina Republican John East voted against Weinberger.17
This controversy and Helm’s attack shocked Weinberger. He apparently
decided never to allow anyone to get to the political right of him on a defense or
foreign policy issue, becoming “the ultimate hard-liner in a rather hard-line
administration.”18 The new secretary jettisoned his previously moderate de-
fense views “to focus singlemindedly on selling a major defense buildup to the
Congress and the nation.” As Reagan’s top adviser on budgetary policy during
the presidential campaign, Weinberger had recommended only a  percent hike
in defense spending—the same level proposed by President Carter.19 Following
the conservative attack, Weinberger, now an “impassioned convert,” pushed
for more than a  percent increase in Reagan’s first budget, “the largest and
swiftest rise in defense spending during peacetime in our history.”20 A Senate
staffer explained: “Cap Weinberger was heavily influenced by the opposition
which surfaced during the confirmation process. He was stung and has never
forgotten it. He must show the Congress that he is a ‘defense advocate.’”21
Characteristically, Weinberger’s enthusiasm for his defense-rebuilding task
knew no bounds. He became a messianic protector of military spending. Taft
later commented, “Nothing ever diverted Secretary Weinberger from his advo-
cacy of higher defense budgets.”22 With huge federal deficits looming, admin-
istration officials and Congress fought Weinberger over the rapid pace of the
defense buildup. Even though Congress voted sizable reductions in the –
 budget requests, during Reagan’s first term, Weinberger secured a  per-
cent increase in defense spending. This funding bought many weapons and
fixed other deficiencies. This pleased the Pentagon’s top brass, some of whom
rated Weinberger as the best recent defense secretary and called his tenure “a
golden era of defense.”23
Beyond the budget, Weinberger worried about the conservatives’ attitudes
on every issue. Admiral Crowe later said: “Weinberger considered himself the
guardian of the right in the Reagan administration, and he applied the politi-
cal test to every major question: ‘What will the right think about this?’ If the
right didn’t have any views on it, then you could talk to him about it. But if it
was something that was dear to their hearts, you were dead. He carried around
some ideological baggage that was pretty fierce.”24
While Weinberger’s hard-line positions made many conservatives and mili-
tary officers happy, he quickly alienated almost everyone else in Washington,
especially on Capitol Hill. The greatest complaint was his rigidity. Weinberger
would not budge even slightly from any position he had taken. Former boss
George Shultz said this was “a technique [Weinberger] used on many issues
before and after: take a position and never change. He seemed to feel that the
outcome, even if different from his position, would likely move further in his
direction when he was difficult and intransigent. In many a battle, this tech-
nique served him well. But over time, as more and more people understood the
technique, its effectiveness waned, and Cap’s capacity to be part of final solu-
tions declined.”25
Weinberger’s uncompromising style infuriated members of Congress.
House Armed Services Committee chairman Les Aspin exploded, “Jesus, Cap,
negotiating with you is like negotiating with the Russians. All you do is keep
repeating your position.” Senator Bill Cohen observed, “I don’t think Cap par-
ticularly has the time, the patience, the inclination to want to sit down and try
to take into account congressional concerns or proposals. . . . He has a mind-
set which precludes, for the most part, taking into account diversity of opinion
or at least recognizing the legitimacy of a diverse opinion.”26
Weinberger’s stonewalling perplexed Tower. As the administration’s fore-
most defense champion on the Hill, Tower found supporting the secretary in-
creasingly difficult. I handled an issue in November, , that exemplified
Tower’s frustrations with the defense secretary. Reacting to the failure of Euro-
pean nations to spend more on defense, the Senate Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee had proposed a ,-man or  percent cut in planned U.S.
military strength in Europe. The administration strongly objected to this provi-
sion, as did Tower. In preparation for a Senate floor fight, he sent me to Europe
for discussions with U.S. and allied officials.
On my return, Tower asked me to poll each senator’s office for a position
on this issue. Results showed that thirty-five senators favored the proposed
cut, fifteen senators supported the administration, and fifty senators were
somewhere in between. These middle-ground senators were not comfortable
with administration plans, but they did not favor a big cut. Tower knew that
without a compromise position, the Appropriations Committee would win.
He asked me to determine the cut in U.S. personnel in Europe that a majority
of senators would support and then to work this compromise with the De-
fense Department.
After explaining the issue and proposing a ,-man cut to my Pentagon
counterpart, G. Mike Andricos, he said he and Russ Rourke, assistant defense
secretary for legislative affairs, would need Weinberger’s approval. They could
not obtain it. He refused to compromise. When I informed Tower, he believed
that Weinberger did not understand our predicament. He asked that I again
explain the situation to the Pentagon. Andricos and Rourke’s more detailed
explanation to the secretary elicited the same answer: compromising was out
of the question. When I told Tower, he cursed, “Screw Weinberger.” The Sen-
ate approved Tower’s compromise amendment.
Tower held a low opinion of Weinberger from the beginning. In a meeting

shortly after the secretary’s confirmation hearing, Weinberger’s lack of knowl-
edge and judgment on defense issues stunned Tower.27 Nunn shared Tower’s
low opinion, saying, “Some of [Weinberger’s] statements are just preposter-
ous.” Goldwater was equally unimpressed. In a letter to Tower, he lamented,
“With all due respect to Cap, he’s never had it; he never will.” In early ,
Robert “Bob” Helm, the NSC’s defense budget expert, had alerted his superiors
to “Weinberger’s loss of credibility on Capitol Hill on the defense budget.”28
The secretary’s laissez-faire management style also earned him low marks.
“Weinberger believed in delegating authority. He deliberately gave the services
ample leeway. When his own staff tried to impose central discipline, Weinberger
often stopped them.” Senior aides warned the secretary that the independence
he had given the services would make it “almost impossible to control them.”
Weinberger replied that it “was how he had run the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare.” But extreme decentralization did not work in the Pen-
tagon, which was already excessively fractured. Weinberger’s civilian assistants
saw him “as a weak manager who pressured the services only when Congress
or public controversy forced his hand.”29
Weinberger was also intransigent in dealing with White House and NSC
staffers. A senior White House official said, “Cap is probably the least flexible
man on the team. Cap sets a path and simply does not get off of it.”30 His un-
popularity was reflected in a White House senior staff meeting in December,
, shortly after the House rejected Weinberger’s plan for basing the MX
missile. As reported in the New York Times: “Someone brought a cartoon show-
ing the defense secretary talking about the need for a missile silo that would be
utterly impenetrable and impervious to outside forces. In the last panel, the
missile was seen lodged in Mr. Weinberger’s head. Staff members reportedly
laughed uproariously on seeing the cartoon.”31
National Security Adviser Robert C. “Bud” McFarlane, who clashed often
with Weinberger, observed: “The secretary of defense has two jobs: develop
sensible military strategy and spend money wisely. Secretary Weinberger was
not qualified by training or experience for either role and never developed the
least qualification in either domain.” McFarlane judged that Weinberger’s mis-
management and poor relations with Congress squandered the opportunity
for a bigger defense buildup: “What was bound to be a post–Jimmy Carter re-
newal of our defense was less successful than it might have been as a conse-
quence of his ineptitude.”32
Despite his combative style, Weinberger exhibited “unfailing courtesy and
graciousness” in personal relations. “Cap values civility in his daily life,” said
an associate. “He doesn’t raise his voice in anger, and there are few confronta-
tions.”33 General Colin L. Powell, who served as Weinberger’s senior military
assistant, described Weinberger as “a cultured man” with a “polished, Old World
23. This Steve Sack cartoon appearing in the Chicago Tribune on December 13,
1982, caused White House staffers to laugh “uproariously.”
manner.” According to Powell, “His tastes ran to the classics in literature and
music. . . . [H]e worked when alone to the accompaniment of Bach and
Beethoven.”34 The fact that Weinberger and Reagan both were gracious gentle-
men strengthened their relationship.
A longtime associate saw Weinberger as “a reticent person, more comfort-
able at large cocktail parties than at small ones because there’s not the risk of
getting to know people deeply.” Weinberger’s dour public demeanor contrasts
with “a quick and playful sense of humor, about himself as well as others” that
he showed in private. At one staff meeting, when told that a member of the
Pentagon’s elite counterterrorism force had been arrested for indecent expo-
sure, Weinberger quipped, “I thought they weren’t even supposed to show their
faces.”35
Many who worked for Weinberger held him in high regard. Powell wrote
that he had “the warmest feelings toward the man I had served. Cap Weinberger
had his little quirks, but at the core, he was a great fighter, a brilliant advocate,
a man, who, like his president, set a few simple objectives and did not deviate
from them. He projected strength, unflappability, and supreme self-
confidence.”36
Yet Powell also noted that he found the secretary unwilling to back down
on any position he had taken. He described Weinberger’s approach as “all sails
up, full speed ahead, where is the brick wall—I wish to run into it now.” Powell
later wrote: “Frank Carlucci had once counseled me that wise subordinates
picked their fights with Weinberger selectively. ‘If it’s small potatoes,’ Frank
had warned, ‘don’t waste your energy. Even if he’s dead wrong. Save yourself
for the serious stuff, and even then you’ll probably hit a stone wall.’”37
Although Weinberger was embattled throughout Washington, he still had
Reagan’s strong backing. The secretary himself admitted that he had a con-
stituency of one. Returning from White House battles, Weinberger would of-
ten tell his staff, “There was only one vote in the room that was on my side, and
that’s the one that mattered.” He felt as if he had no allies. It was “him versus
the world, and the only person on his side was Reagan.”38
Just before the  election, in an interview with journalist Nicholas
Lemann, Weinberger revealed parallels between his unyielding behavior as sec-
retary and his lonely stands at Harvard: “He constantly described the stand he
was taking as unpopular, implying an equation of unpopularity with virtue.
He used words like facile and comfortable to describe his opponents’ positions,
and difficult, long, and disagreeable to describe his own. He told me that we had
let our defenses lapse because ‘nobody was willing to make the strong, unpopu-
lar fight against it.’ Though he obviously felt the sting of the constant criticism
of defense spending, he had always experienced attacks as a part of holding
high office; naturally, in his highest office he experienced the strongest at-
tacks.”39
Lou Cannon reported that despite widespread pressure, Reagan “refused
to replace Weinberger as defense secretary, a change keenly desired by key con-
gressional Republicans who resented his intransigence on budgetary matters,
and which White House officials told me was urged by Nancy Reagan after the
 election.” Political consultant Ed Rollins noted that “Cap Weinberger was
the most indomitable infighter I ever saw—the only member of the inner circle
Nancy Reagan couldn’t trump.”40
Weinberger later wrote, “I was told by some that my ‘stubbornness’ was
hurting the president, so I was particularly grateful and pleased when in 
he was re-elected by one of the largest margins in our history.”41
Since the end of World War II, efforts to achieve greater military unification
had originated with presidents and defense secretaries. The formidable alliance
of Congress and the services consistently opposed and weakened the proposals
of these two officials. This time, the roles were reversed: elements of Congress
were pushing for unifying reforms, and Weinberger had inexplicably allied him-
self with the services in opposition. As one of its overarching objectives, reor-
ganization sought to strengthen the ability of the defense secretary to lead and
manage DoD. This fact makes Weinberger’s opposition even more difficult to
comprehend.
24. Defense Secretary Weinberger presents President Reagan with a copy

of Soviet Military Power in the Oval Office, March 3, 1983.
(Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library.)
In , Sir Winston S. Churchill, one of Weinberger’s heroes, said Russia

“is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”42 He could just as easily
have been describing Caspar Weinberger. Weinberger exhibited many para-
doxes: He had spent much of his life in politics, but he was unskilled as a politi-
cian. He was well educated but never became a defense intellectual. He was
amiable but developed few friends. He was a public official but maintained the
style of a private person.
Why did Weinberger oppose reorganization? Admiral Crowe says, “Wein-
berger didn’t really understand how the department operated.” Focusing on
his advocacy role and key policy issues, he saw organizational concerns as “less
important.” Taft believed that Weinberger “was undoubtedly right that the
department’s most serious problems had been created by a combination of in-
adequate funding and irresolute political leadership and were well on their
way to being solved by increased budgets and President Reagan’s consistent
approach to security policy.”43
Weinberger viewed reorganization proposals as an excuse for cutting the de-
fense budget: “Reorganization was put forth frequently by many people as a sub-
stitute for defense spending. They’d say, ‘If we just had reorganization, we wouldn’t
need so much money,’ which was quite absurd. You can’t buy airplanes and bul-
lets and rifles and submarines and things like that with reorganization plans.”44
Weinberger’s laissez faire management style gave the military departments

leeway to pursue their own interests. Rather than shaping, integrating, and
controlling the services’ diverse programs, Weinberger saw the promotion of
service desires as his principal duty. When the services rejected reorganization,
he sided with them. Moreover, given his neglect of the secretary’s integrating
function, Weinberger was not attuned to reform’s central tenet: the need for
greater unification.
Weinberger’s dislike of Congress was factored into his opposition to
congressional reform proposals. His hostility may have originated in bitter
memories of the Senate’s consideration of his nomination. Taft later observed,
“Secretary Weinberger was not always able to conceal his lack of confidence
in many legislators who had either caused, acquiesced in or, at the least, failed
to prevent the ‘decade of neglect’ preceding his term in office.” For whatever
reason, throughout his tenure, Weinberger resisted congressional initiatives
and worked poorly with Congress. He “never really built the essential political
networks” on Capitol Hill.45
As the administration’s early consensus on defense spending disappeared,
Weinberger experienced increasing resistance from Congress on Pentagon bud-
get levels. He feared that the reform debate’s focus on departmental problems
would further erode support for defense spending.46
Moreover, Weinberger viewed reorganization as a harsh criticism of his
tenure.47 No matter how hard defense reform proponents stressed the long-
term nature of organizational problems, Weinberger took their efforts person-
ally. Given his enormous pride in his accomplishments, Weinberger was not
about to accept such criticism.48
Only General Jack Vessey, JCS chairman, could have changed Weinberger’s
views on reorganization. The secretary says, “My relationship with General
Vessey was very close, very warm, very friendly. We met every day, and I never
had anything but good advice from him and good, frank, and candid reactions.”
In November, , Vessey and the other joint chiefs completed a study re-
quested by Weinberger on JCS reorganization that concluded that sweeping
changes were “unnecessary.” This study “had a substantial impact” on the
secretary’s thinking. He explains why: “I have enormous respect for General
Vessey. He and I were the last two people in the Pentagon who had active ser-
vice in World War II. I thought his advice was always sound. His judgment was
extraordinary, and his understanding of the whole military was invaluable.”49
Vessey equally admired Weinberger as “an exceptional secretary of defense.
Nobody worked harder at the job than he did.”50 The chairman thought that
criticisms of the secretary as a spendthrift were misplaced. “If everybody had
the same concern for the taxpayer’s dollar that Cap Weinberger had, we’d be in
great shape.”51
When the wiry, five-foot-nine, unassuming, plainspoken Vessey became

chairman, he was confronted by the JCS reorganization controversy. Given his
“nonconfrontational” operating style, he was an unlikely champion of that
cause.52 Vessey was a consensus builder, not a visionary reformer. Once on the
job, even his supporters noticed “his reluctance to tangle with the Pentagon’s
feuding factions.” One official conceded, “He hasn’t gone in there and taken
over the Joint Staff. He hasn’t knocked any heads together.”53
Vessey was “careful to cultivate smooth relations” with the four service
chiefs. Compared to General Jones, his activist predecessor, Vessey was “more
comfortable yielding to consensus.” When program budgets needed to be
trimmed, Vessey rarely recommended cuts himself, but would “pass on the ser-
vices’ inflated wish lists to the congressional chopping block.” When it came to
JCS reorganization, Vessey “refused to get out in front of his colleagues—pre-
ferring to lobby behind the scenes for a JCS consensus.”
The army general was committed to making improvements, but did not
see the need for statutory changes. He “thought there was more room inside
the law for improvement and change than there was by changing the law.”
General Meyer observed, “Vessey, much like Admiral Moorer, believed you could
change the system if you were strong. This belief didn’t take into account the
way the services were so dominant and could block you.”54
Vessey’s – tour as the four-star commander of U.S. Forces, Korea, a sub-
ordinate unified command in the Pacific Command, had exposed him to the
excessive power of the services and their ability to undermine his command
authority. One dispute between Vessey and the Marine Corps illustrates these
realities.
For many years, the d Marine Division on Okinawa had sent one artillery
battalion at a time to Korea for practice firing at Nightmare Range, fifteen miles
from the ever-tense Demilitarized Zone. The range was in the sector of I Corps
Group, commanded by Lt. Gen. John H. Cushman, an army officer who reported
to Vessey. Cushman told the marine division commander that he intended “if
the North Koreans should attack while the Marine artillery battalion was in
his area of responsibility, to place the battalion under operational control of
the [U.S. Army] d Infantry Division Artillery so that the battalion’s fires could
be most effectively used in the defense of Korea.”55
According to Cushman, “The Marine division commander demurred,
pointing out that it was Marine Corps doctrine that Marine units fight together
under the Marine division-wing command concept.”
Cushman remarked, “If war should come, I would be surprised indeed to
find the Marine artillery battalion waiting for a Marine division or other Ma-
rine formation headquarters to show up, before the battalion engaged the at-
tacking enemy.” Cushman added, “The former Marine Corps commandant, the
famous Major General John A. Lejeune, who had commanded a Marine bri-
gade under the same nd Division in World War I, and who later commanded
the full Army division, might if he were alive take exception to having the Ma-
rine artillery either sit out the battle or operate without higher artillery head-
quarters’ fire direction.”
Despite military logic, Cushman was unable to resolve this issue. Vessey
struck out as well, unable “to get the Marines to agree” to command arrange-
ments in a crisis. In Cushman’s view, Vessey did not press the issue with higher
headquarters because it “would have taken him into a tangled web of doctrine,
precedent, and service suspicion profitless to enter.”
In one of the world’s hottest spots, Vessey had a marine battalion—far from
the sea, hundreds of miles from any naval force, but close to North Korean
lines—with which he had no command relationship. This situation continued
throughout Vessey’s tour as chairman.
Beyond his weak command situation, Vessey could cite many historical
examples of poor American interservice coordination on the Korean Penin-
sula going back to the Korean War, the first wartime test of the new Depart-
ment of Defense.
American forces had occupied Korea south of the thirty-eighth parallel
after the Japanese surrender in . South Korea was part of the geographic
area of responsibility of the Far East Command, a unified command led by
General MacArthur. After helping to build internal security forces for the new
Republic of Korea, the United States withdrew its forces, except for a small
advisory group, in July, . The South Koreans would have to defend them-
selves. Before dawn on June , , the North Koreans attacked South Ko-
rea in a naked act of aggression.
In , the JCS had directed all unified theater commanders to establish a
“joint staff with appropriate members from the various components of the ser-
vices . . . in key positions of responsibility.” MacArthur did not act on this direc-
tive until nearly three years later, and then only to create a Joint Strategic Plans
and Operations Group under his assistant chief of staff for operations. At the
outbreak of the Korean War, “unification had never reached the Far East” at
the highest headquarters level. The Far East Command operated for the first
two and one-half years after the outbreak of hostilities without a joint head-
quarters. Manned almost completely by army personnel and focused on army
operations, FECOM headquarters was “dominated by Army thinking and prone
to honor Army concepts.”56
Interservice problems proliferated in the absence of a joint staff. Coordi-
nation of air operations proved particularly troublesome. When the Korean
conflict erupted, no centralized control of air force, navy, and marine avia-
tion existed. Commanders could not effectively employ airpower, and pilots
faced hazardous flying over the limited Korean airspace. The navy and
Marine Corps grudgingly agreed to give the air force limited authority over
their air assets, called “coordination control.” “Differences of opinion, misun-
derstandings of channels of communications, and disagreements over the
wording of important operations orders” ensued. By the end of July, “impro-
vised procedures brought some order to the fantastically confused command
situation in the Far East, but . . . never achieved the full fruits of unification.”57
Differences in army–air force and navy–Marine Corps doctrine for close air
support “triggered a controversy that lasted virtually throughout the war.”
Army–air force doctrine envisioned close air support primarily beyond the range
of army artillery, a distance of a thousand yards or more in front of the troops.
Navy–Marine Corps doctrine substituted close air support for artillery, an ap-
proach driven by limited marine artillery.58
On July  and , navy attempts to provide air strikes in support of the
beleaguered Eighth Army inside the Pusan pocket were “tremendously frus-
trated.” Doctrinal differences, communications problems, and incompatible
maps produced “total confusion.” Radio discipline was poor, and “basic incom-
patibilities” existed between army–air force and navy radios. Navy aeronauti-
cal maps were “delineated in latitude and longitude” while gridded air force
charts permitted controllers to “pinpoint targets by a combination of numbers
and letters.” Because of the confusion, “most Navy planes gave up [working
with controllers], roaming the front on their own, looking for targets.” In Au-
gust, the navy scratched  percent of its sorties because planes could not con-
tact [frontline] controllers.59
Assessing these organizational deficiencies, an air force historian later
wrote: “Certainly, at the outset of the Korean war, the defective theater com-
mand system prevented the fullest employment of airpower, delayed the begin-
ning of a comprehensive air-interdiction program for more than a month, and
. . . caused confusion and loss of effectiveness at the very time that every single
aircraft sortie was vital to the survival of the Eighth Army in Korea.”60
The Pentagon also evidenced disarray. At the outbreak of fighting, the uni-
fied military establishment, less than three years old, “was an unfinished cre-
ation.” The Pentagon continued to be plagued by “strong-willed interservice
competition for men, money, weapons, and missions” and “resistance by the
military services to the authority of the secretary of defense.” Despite the role
of the defense secretary and his staff, the services “retained much power.” They
“enjoyed remarkable success in holding onto many functions and prerogatives”
by controlling “the military essentials—money, men, material, research and
development, choice of weapons, and, above all, the assignment and promo-
tion of personnel.”61
Moreover, a series of “petty actions and frustrations” complicated inter-
service cooperation. The air force sometimes could not find a plane to fly the
army chief, while “most Air Force generals had their individual, luxury-
equipped aircraft.” On the day of the critical Inchon landing in Korea, Acting
Defense Secretary Robert A. Lovett had to settle an issue that had stymied the
JCS: the allocation of parking spaces to marine officers at the Pentagon’s Mall
Entrance. On occasion, the JCS was able to resolve bitter disagreements over
funding of major weapon systems only by flipping a coin.62
In the field, unified commanders like MacArthur had little say in shaping
the force and weapons capabilities of service forces assigned to their commands.
Such capabilities, dictated by the services, often “had more to do with the over-
all interests of the services than with the operational needs of the combat com-
mands.” The air force gave priority to strategic bombers, the army to guided
missiles and atomic weapons, and the navy to supercarriers and large carrier
aircraft when the unified commanders wanted more tactical fighters and trans-
ports, more divisions and tanks, and more nonaviation naval capabilities.63
Strategic planning, supposedly the province of the JCS and unified com-
mands, was “dominated” by the services “through their review of JCS plans
and the assignment to the Joint Staff of officers whose first loyalty was to their
services.” During this period, “allegiance to service above other entities re-
mained the norm.”
On Vessey’s first day as chairman, the joint chiefs agreed to review their duties
and performance and Jones’s and Meyer’s proposals for fundamental reform.64
Meyer, who was still a member of the JCS, termed the review “very superficial.
They didn’t want to confront me. I didn’t want to confront them. I didn’t choose
to make that a battlefield because I realized very quickly that change was not
going to happen with Weinberger there. The best thing for me was to get out
and take it on from the outside.”65
Meyer judged that the secretary had a closed mind on reform. “Weinberger
was a World War II veteran and had narrow blinders on. He had little imagina-
tion as to what should be done.” Said Meyer of the secretary’s thinking: “We
had an Army that won World War II. There’s no reason we can’t win this war
with the same approach.” He found Weinberger unwilling to look at the need
for greater “jointness.”
Meyer’s own relationship with Vessey also dissuaded him from forcing the
issue. “I was leaving, and I didn’t want to make Jack’s job any harder. I knew I
was going to fight this problem outside,” he recalled.
When completed, the joint chiefs’ review targeted OSD as the organization
that needed reform. As they briefed that conclusion, a dispute erupted between
the secretary’s civilian and military advisers.66
Vessey did, however, help strengthen the JCS’s ties with the president and
defense secretary. When Reagan interviewed him for the chairman’s job, they
talked “about the importance of the president’s getting military advice from
the Joint Chiefs.” When Vessey later accepted the job, he and Reagan “insti-
tuted regular quarterly meetings with the chiefs.” Elated by this regular con-
nection to the commander in chief, the JCS often ballyhooed this as a great
organizational improvement, the fix that Admiral Hayward and other naval
officers had argued would solve JCS problems.
The NSC staff believed the joint chiefs’ presentations to the president offered
little substance. Michael B. Donley, the NSC staffer in charge of arranging these
meetings, said, “The Joint Chiefs always leaned in favor of absolute pap.”
Donley’s colleague, John Douglass, termed the briefings “fluff.”67
In terms of JCS performance, Vessey said, “The most important thing I felt
that the chiefs needed to do was operate more as Joint Chiefs.” By this, he meant
emphasizing their duties as JCS members over their service roles. Vessey told each
service chief that as a joint chief, “he had to hang his service cap on the peg
outside the door and come in and take up a different set of duties.”68 Described as
“a firm but fatherly squad leader,” Vessey produced a more cooperative approach
among the chiefs. His consensus-building lectures did not, however, resolve un-
derlying differences.69
Early in his tenure, Vessey was credited with making the JCS “more influ-
ential than any of their predecessors in  years.”70 But his tenure was soon
beset by operational and budgetary problems. One journalist observed: “As de-
fense budgets soar, even some Pentagon officials complain that the Joint Chiefs
have failed to overcome parochial interests and offer a coherent strategy for
using the funds. Glitches in the Grenada invasion illustrated that the military
services still have trouble operating in unison, and in both Grenada and Beirut,
civilians have been frustrated by their inability to cut through the military’s
cumbersome chain of command.”71
Yet Vessey continued to share Weinberger’s conviction that no statutory
changes in organization were needed. Of their views on reorganization, a former
Pentagon official says, “I never saw any daylight between them.”72
In June, , Taft—who had been appointed deputy defense secretary in Janu-
ary—created an Ad Hoc Task Group on Defense Organization to “consider the
options available to the department in the current legislative environment and
present them for decision by the secretary.”73 Chapman B. Cox, the new OSD
general counsel, chaired the seven-member group. Russ Rourke was one of
two assistant defense secretaries on the panel. The other, Richard L. Armitage,
handled international security affairs. A senior official represented each mili-
tary department: Army Under Secretary James R. Ambrose, Navy Deputy Un-
der Secretary Seth Cropsey, and Air Force Assistant Secretary Tidal W. McCoy.
The final member, Vice Adm. Arthur S. Moreau, Vessey’s special assistant, pro-
vided the joint perspective.
Despite its balanced appearance, the Cox Committee, as the group became
known, heavily favored navy positions. Cox had come from the navy as an
assistant secretary. David Berteau, the group’s executive secretary, said, “Cox
was seen as pro-Navy because that’s where he came from, that’s where his
heart was, and everybody knew that’s where he ultimately wanted to go as
Lehman’s replacement.”74
McCoy, the air force representative, had worked closely with Lehman dur-
ing the  presidential campaign, and Lehman helped him land his assistant
secretary position.75 As a deputy CNO, Moreau had handled the navy’s antire-
form efforts when Jones and Meyer initially pushed for reorganization. Along
with Cropsey, Lehman’s antireform henchman, these three gave the navy effec-
tive control of the group. Defense Week reported that the “group is dominated
by Navy partisans.”76
Berteau said that “the Pentagon established this group with a clear inten-
tion of ‘if we can deep six this whole thing we’ve got to, and we can’t do it
without some kind of structure that is going to coordinate and unify our re-
sponse.’ . . . It could have been called the Ad Hoc Task Group to Prevent Defense
Reorganization.” The Pentagon assembled the right group: “None of the group’s
members was pro-reorganization.”77
The group’s meetings reflected this bias. According to Berteau, “We were
trying to replace something with nothing.” One initiative sought to have the
Justice Department declare “congressional tampering with the chain of com-
mand” unconstitutional. Berteau described this undertaking as a “frontal as-
sault on reorganization’s legitimacy.” The Justice Department rebuffed the
Pentagon.78
The CSIS Defense Organization Project made a determined effort to work
with the Cox Committee. “CSIS was reaching out to us to attempt to get us to
embrace, or at least understand, some of what it was going to say in its report,”
said Berteau. “We didn’t accept any of their ideas in any way, shape, or form.”
The Cox Committee responded by writing press statements and correspondence
to Congress rebutting the CSIS report.
The committee also coordinated responses to congressional questions on
reorganization—even after Congress prohibited such coordination. In ,
Congress directed that answers to questions posed in the defense authorization
act be sent directly by the responsible officials to the Senate and House Armed
Services Committees without review by any intervening authority. “The Cox
Committee complied with the letter of that requirement, but probably not with
the spirit,” said Berteau. “There were a number of discussions about what those
answers might say before they were written. The JCS chairman’s answers were
not finalized until we had read the unified commanders’ answers [in order] to
counter any ill-advised comments.” The committee, by ensuring the depart-
ment’s answers were “milk toast,” made no intellectual contribution to the re-
organization debate.
“Weinberger was badly served by the Cox Committee,” said Barry Blechman
of the CSIS project. “He received a very skewed, antireform view of the issues.
If Weinberger had established a group more representative of various reform
perspectives, he might have adopted a more responsible posture.”79 Given
Weinberger’s personality, however, it is unlikely that the Cox Committee could
have changed his mind.
Weinberger did not have to wear down his key Pentagon colleagues on
reorganization. They reinforced his stonewalling stance. Vessey, the top officer,
fully supported the secretary, and so did the special group created to handle
the issue.
With this backing and the president’s unwavering support, Weinberger
was ready to battle reformers in Congress and elsewhere.
CHAPTER 13
Naval Gunfire
The Navy, much more than any of the other services,
has cherished and clung to tradition.
—Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War
B rash, bright, feisty, Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. was the Pentagon’s
foremost antireform hyperactivist. A chart in his  posture statement
symbolized his assault on Congress. To show the accuracy of -inch guns, it
superimposed over Capitol Hill the results of test firings from the battleship Iowa.
In the chart, according to a reporter, “The Capitol has been virtually obliter-
ated and the nearby Rayburn House Office Building has taken its share of hits.”
Lehman said, “I thought it would be effective to take the actual data and trans-
pose it over the Capitol so that they would get an idea of what the accuracy
would look like . . . The tongue-in-cheek needling was intended as well.”1
Members of Congress did not need the graphic reminder that the navy
secretary was firing at them. In his early years at the navy’s helm, Lehman
often battled and defeated Congress.2
Lehman had vigorously opposed reorganization from the beginning, see-
ing it as a momentous issue whose outcome would determine whether the navy
would maintain its independence and prerogatives. Having masterfully led an
effort to revitalize the navy, Lehman was not about to see this resurgence un-
done by directives from the powerful central authority that reformers intended
to create. The navy secretary entered this battle confidently, exhibiting his “un-
disguised zest for the forward attack in any contest.”3 His ruthless tactics nor-
mally prevailed. He aspired to emulate one predecessor, James V. Forrestal, who
had defeated postwar unification reforms that the navy opposed. As he mounted
his attack, Lehman “was at the pinnacle of his power, and arguably one of the
most influential men in the capital.”4
Naval Gunfire 253
Lehman was “called everything from a maverick to a prima donna to the

most dynamic secretary the Navy has ever had.”5 He ascended to the top navy
job at age thirty-eight, one of the youngest navy secretaries ever. His Washing-
ton career began twelve years earlier on Henry Kissinger’s National Security
Council staff. After five years there, he joined the U.S. delegation to the Mutual
Balanced Force Reduction talks in Vienna and later served as deputy director
of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
A native of Philadelphia, Lehman possessed impressive academic creden-
tials. A  graduate of St. Joseph’s College, he attended Cambridge Univer-
sity in England for two years, departing with a bachelor’s degree in honors law
and a master’s degree in international law and diplomacy. Returning to Phila-
delphia, Lehman completed doctoral coursework in international relations
before heading to Washington and received his Ph.D. in . By , he had
authored or coauthored five books on foreign policy, arms control, and aircraft
carriers.
Upon graduation from St. Joseph’s, Lehman enlisted in the Air Force Re-
serve. He transferred to the Naval Reserve in January, , after retired admi-
ral Arleigh Burke, who had befriended Lehman, arranged a direct appointment
for him as an ensign.6 Lehman qualified as both a helicopter pilot and a naviga-
tor-bombardier on A-E aircraft and wore two sets of wings on his uniform. By
the time he was sworn in as navy secretary, Lehman held the rank of lieuten-
ant commander.
The conservative attack on Weinberger’s nomination catapulted Lehman
into the navy secretary job. After the uproar that followed Weinberger’s selec-
tion of Frank Carlucci as his deputy and William Taft as his transition team
head, hawks in the Republican Party, led by Senate Armed Services Committee
members, reportedly were “allowed to make one key Pentagon appointment
for each one made by Weinberger.” The hawks placed Richard Perle, Fred Ikle,
and John Lehman in key Pentagon posts.7 At President-elect Reagan’s Decem-
ber reception for the congressional leadership, Sens. John Tower and Scoop
Jackson “cornered Reagan and said, ‘Lehman is the guy you have to put in as
Navy secretary.’” Lehman wanted the job because of “My deep concern for what
was happening to the Navy, and my certain conviction that I knew how to fix it.”8
Lehman entered the Pentagon on February , , “as the darling of the
hawks, the personal symbol to right-wing conservatives of Reagan’s military
buildup.”9 He had powerful patrons in the White House—including Vice Pres.
George Bush and his old friend, Richard V. Allen, Reagan’s national security
adviser—and on Capitol Hill. Lehman effectively used these connections to ad-
vance his navy agenda. Conservative support also permitted him to take an
independent stance in the Pentagon. Weinberger, especially in the beginning,
did not want to anger conservatives by challenging Lehman.
Weinberger was no match for Lehman. One was a defense novice; the other
was an expert. Weinberger was concerned only with his relationship with the
president; Lehman tended a vast network of alliances. Also unlike Weinberger,

Lehman demonstrated political savvy. When the defense secretary or other
Pentagon powers tried to force decisions on Lehman, he “covertly ran to allies
in the White House or in Congress and got his superiors overturned.” Events in
August, , exemplified his guile.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Thayer, who had replaced Carlucci, in-
structed the navy secretary to cut one of two aircraft carriers in the next bud-
get. Lehman instead used his White House allies, who were unaware of the
Pentagon infighting, to obtain Reagan’s approval of names for the two new
carriers: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Weinberger was forced to
overrule Thayer. In the White House press release announcing the names, the
president also embraced for the first time the goal of having a six-hundred-
ship navy.
Weinberger’s laissez faire management style worked to Lehman’s advan-
tage. The defense secretary called his approach “controlled decentralization,”
but in reality it was uncontrolled. Weinberger gave the services “a relatively
free hand” in setting priorities and allocating resources. He gave no firm policy
or budget guidance and he was not adept at forcing the services to comply with
his goals. A group of Democratic critics said, “It is like having traffic at a busy
intersection directed by a blind man.” Lehman often “took advantage of
Weinberger’s passiveness,” without fear of retribution. Despite Lehman’s trans-
gressions, Weinberger—disdainful of confrontation—seldom scolded the navy
secretary.10
General Colin Powell, who served as Weinberger’s senior military assis-
tant, later called Lehman “probably the ablest infighter in the building. Lehman
would never budge an inch in the competition among the services. To him, the
Navy position was always the Alamo.” Hedrick Smith judges that Lehman ac-
cumulated more “real power and won more of what he was after than any
other major figure in the Pentagon, including Weinberger.”11
Weinberger later said, “Lehman was a very strong advocate of a very pow-
erful navy. . . . He was extremely effective and very knowledgeable, but very
vigorous and abrasive in his advocacy. [He left] a few victims and enemies along
the path. . . . But he was helpful in building up the navy which was what we
had to do.” Weinberger’s quick qualification, “Not all of it, but part of it,” im-
plied that Lehman’s buildup was excessive.12
The navy’s admirals also were no match for Lehman. Admiral King, the
World War II CNO, and his successors usually turned navy secretaries, no mat-
ter how well qualified, into figureheads. Prior to the war, the department’s ci-
vilian heads had wielded the real power, with the “top admirals having to defer
all major decisions to the secretary.” Lehman wanted “to reinstate the concept
that it was the political leaders, not the sovereigns with stars on their shoul-
ders, who should reign supreme over the Navy.”13
Naval Gunfire 255
Lehman instructed his lawyer to prepare a comprehensive account of the

secretary’s statutory powers, including laws that had been long forgotten.
Lehman “wanted all the authority he could get.” He would start by operating
within the law, but “he would bend and circumvent the rules if need be and use
every political means available to become the undisputed chief executive of the
entire Navy.” His power grab principally targeted the CNO, Adm. Thomas B. Hay-
ward, whose character—reserved, gracious, and principled—was the opposite
of Lehman’s. The navy secretary “planned to take from Hayward as much power
and responsibility as the law would allow and place it under his own control.”14
The takeover was ruthless. Lehman exhibited “an uncompromising streak
of independence, and an intellectual arrogance that brooked little internal dis-
agreement or argument.” The secretary repeatedly told naval officers: “Loy-
alty is agreeing with me.” The careers of those who exhibited loyalty soared
while those who challenged Lehman suffered. Of Lehman’s first meeting with
the admirals at navy headquarters, Adm. Stasser Holcomb later said: “It was a
jarring experience. We had an activist secretary who was rude, who was arro-
gant.” As his power grew, Lehman became more strident, especially with sub-
ordinate naval officers.15
Hayward and his fellow officers had nowhere to turn for help. Lehman had
better connections at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Weinberger, who
could have protected the uniformed navy, would not challenge Lehman, the
favorite of conservatives. The defense secretary’s novice status in the Pentagon
also kept him from understanding the problem. Moreover, reigning in Lehman
would clash with his management philosophy. Nor could Hayward appeal to
the retired navy community: its most prominent members had backed Lehman’s
candidacy for secretary.
By early , after just a year on the job, Lehman was in control of the
sea service. He had relegated Hayward to “little more than a powerless, cer-
emonial figurehead.” Many naval officers “hung their heads in shame and felt
like fools for not standing up to Lehman. They resented his meddling, his
cronyism, and his arrogant attitude that his decisions were the only ones that
mattered. Now it was too late.” Gloating over the way he had seized control,
Lehman once told a journalist in an off-the-record setting: “The admirals don’t
understand that I’ve got all the power—money and promotions. I control their
budget, and no one gets three or four stars without my OK.”16 Lehman would
eventually accumulate more authority than he could use wisely.
Hayward retired in mid- at the end of his four-year tour as CNO. He
supported Adm. Jim Watkins as his replacement “because he felt Watkins would
best be able to stand up to Lehman.” According to colleagues, dealing with
Lehman proved to be the toughest part of Watkins’s job. Their stormy run-ins
were known throughout the Pentagon. Watkins believed that Lehman was inter-
fering in the CNO’s legal responsibilities for personnel and operations.17
Lehman pushed a new naval strategy, called the Maritime Strategy, which
envisioned U.S. aircraft carriers conducting strikes deep into the Soviet heart-
land. Watkins, so outspoken he was nicknamed “Radio Free Watkins,” told re-
porters that Lehman’s plan would bring the carriers “too close” to Soviet shores
with great risks. He also said this decision belonged to either the CNO or JCS,
not the navy secretary. Lehman disputed that view and later read to Watkins
the duties of the navy secretary.18
The JCS also did not think Lehman’s authority extended to naval strategy
and operations. Calling the navy secretary “a noisy drum beater,” General
Vessey later said, “What annoyed the chiefs was that Lehman spoke as though
he were the operator of the navy, when in fact Lehman was the man charged
with organizing, training, recruiting, and equipping the navy for use by the
unified and specified commands.”19
Watkins won some battles with Lehman, such as when the secretary tried
to alter Seawolf submarine specifications. The CNO “stormed into Lehman’s office,
irreverently pounding a fist on his boss’s desk.” Then, Lehman recalled, “He told
me he didn’t think I knew what I was talking about, that I was intruding where
I had no business. In retrospect, he was right.”20 Congressional staffers attrib-
uted Lehman’s desire to make all the decisions to his failure to understand that
civilian control means keeping the military out of civilian decisions, not putting
civilians into military decisions.
Lehman was also dealt aggressively with those outside the navy he be-
lieved were obstructing or criticizing his plans. He was so self-confident that
he invited confrontation; he looked upon every critic as a potential convert. A
journalist reported Lehman “curling his lip contemptuously at the ‘petty bu-
reaucrats’ on Capitol Hill and ‘lounge lizards in the Pentagon’ who made his
job difficult.”21
Apparently, one of those lounge lizards was General Powell, whom Lehman
attempted to have fired because he limited Lehman’s access to Weinberger.
Powell later wrote: “Not content to run the Navy, Lehman was forever pressing
on Weinberger his ideas for running the entire defense establishment. Wein-
berger did not enjoy Lehman’s aggressiveness, and I had to play the heavy, keep-
ing him at bay. Not surprisingly, Lehman blamed me for depriving the secre-
tary of the benefit of his brilliance. He went around the building claiming that
I was not serving the secretary, but ingratiating myself with the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to guarantee my future.” Lehman urged Taft to have Weinberger fire
Powell.22
Lehman did not shy from fights with members of Congress. His response
to a letter from Cong. William J. Coyne (D-Pennsylvania) complaining about
plans to name a new nuclear submarine Pittsburgh typified his creed of “fire
back when fired upon.” Coyne wrote, “If this administration wants to do some-
thing for Pittsburgh, it could do so by taking steps to reduce the [area’s] double-
Naval Gunfire 257
digit unemployment.” Lehman replied, “Thank you for your snide, tasteless
letter. As a fellow Pennsylvanian, I know your extremist views do not represent
those of the people of Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh.”23
The navy secretary also boldly attacked Pentagon superiors in public. When
Thayer attempted to reduce the navy’s budget, Lehman complained to the
Washington Post, “I’m sick and tired of spending  percent of my time up on
the Hill undoing the damage that senior defense officials are doing to the
president’s budget. What I am trying to do is simply counter the guerrilla war-
fare by these defense officials who don’t seem to understand what the president’s
program is all about.” Although Thayer “hit the roof ” and suggested he or
Lehman had to go, Weinberger downplayed the navy secretary’s attack, say-
ing that he did not think Lehman was “guilty of outright insubordination.”24
The navy prospered during Lehman’s reign. In his first four years, its bud-
get increased by  percent, and its fleet grew by fifty ships. Lehman had suc-
cessfully sold the Maritime Strategy and a six-hundred-ship navy— more
than the  inventory. He also had elevated the navy’s status, making it the
most favored and visible service. “He’s got a ready, fire, aim approach to every-
thing,” said a retired admiral, “but he’s done more for the Navy than the last
six or eight secretaries put together.” Even Admiral Watkins concurred: “Per-
haps he breaks china excessively, but to me the pluses so outweigh the nega-
tives as to make the negatives irrelevant.”25
Even critics marveled at Lehman’s accomplishments. “Lehman is not a man
to trifle with,” said Rear Adm. Eugene J. Carroll Jr. “He’s aggressive, confident,
a real master of the bureaucratic process. He has an outstanding record in get-
ting support for Navy programs, getting budget action to fund a major expan-
sion. He has been more active and more effective in that role than any secretary
of the Navy in modern memory.” Senator Cohen agreed, calling Lehman the
“most effective individual in the administration on defense policy . . . and prob-
ably the most effective service chief that I have seen, or anyone has seen, in a
long, long time.”26
Lehman also sought favorable press coverage. His public affairs officer’s
strategy “heaped so much positive press on Lehman” that Weinberger regu-
larly sent “orders for Lehman to tone down his public image.” Media reports
“had painted Lehman as a golden boy, a man destined to go on to bigger and
better things in the administration.” Reporters touted Lehman as a future sec-
retary of defense, national security adviser, senator, or even vice presidential
candidate.27
The navy secretary became the Pentagon’s media star. Hedrick Smith de-
scribed his colorful reputation as “slick, cocky, rough-and-tumble operator, a
self-proclaimed naval strategist and a showboater who enjoys making waves,
thrives on controversy, knows his stuff, and has few peers as a bureaucratic
infighter.” Lehman craved the limelight. The flood of publicity often addressed
25. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman in front of a 16-inch gun

turret on the New Jersey battleship, September, 1982.
(U.S. Navy photo.)
“his irreverence, propensity for self-promotion, and outright arrogance.”28

Negative coverage did not concern Lehman. I often heard him say, “There is no
such thing as bad publicity.”
But Lehman also accumulated enemies. A veteran of three administrations
called him “one of the two or three slimiest men in Washington.” A congres-
sional staffer observed that Lehman will “generally do whatever is necessary, or
say whatever is necessary, to win the point.” A journalist said he “used a daz-
zling array of creative tricks to get what he wants. He is famous for knifing his
enemies.” Racking up victories, Lehman “wrecked careers, snookered Congress,
and lied to his bosses.”29
Naval Gunfire 259
Despite its successful buildup, the navy began experiencing “an endless num-
ber of foul-ups and disasters that began with the October  bombing of the
Marine barracks.” During the Grenada invasion, the navy “experienced prob-
lems on almost every front.” Next, Vice Adm. Joseph Metcalf, commander of
the Grenada operation, botched the handling of the smuggling of Soviet-made
assault rifles into the United States. Then there was the Syrian shoot down of
navy jets in the Bekaa Valley, errant gunfire into Lebanon from the battleship
New Jersey, horror stories about astronomical prices paid for common items
following the ill-advised decision to eliminate the Naval Matériel Command
(which oversaw procurement), and irregularities in navy promotion boards.
The worst bad news, however, broke on May , , when banner headlines
announced that FBI agents had arrested John Walker, his son, his brother, and
another man who had spied on the navy for eighteen years for the Soviet Union.
Earlier miscues blemished Lehman’s record, but the last one was his undoing.30
This unprecedented security breach dragged the navy into its worst crisis
in years. After five months of stinging media and congressional criticism,
Weinberger, Lehman, and others met to discuss a plea bargain that would im-
prison John Walker for life and his son for twenty-five years. Although no one
at the meeting liked the plea bargain, they all agreed to it. However, when Jus-
tice Department lawyers announced the arrangement, Lehman lashed out,
saying it sent “the wrong message to the nation and to the fleet.” He claimed
that he had objected to the deal: “We in the Navy are disappointed at the plea
bargain.”31
Weinberger, who was surprised and angered by Lehman’s double-cross,
fired back two days later: “Secretary Lehman now understands that he did not
have all the facts concerning the matter before he made several injudicious
and incorrect statements with respect to the plea-bargain.”32
Lehman’s backstabbing was the last straw. Weinberger “decided not to tol-
erate another of his affronts.” Sixteen months later, on February , , with
Lehman again meddling in a promotion board, Weinberger finally mustered
the courage to fire him. The navy secretary, who was on vacation with his fam-
ily, was startled by the television news report that he had announced plans to
leave the Pentagon.
Lehman tells a different story: “In early February . . . I told Cap of my plan
to leave about the end of March, thereby giving him time to select my succes-
sor and to provide for a smooth transition. This turned out to be a serious mis-
calculation. Two days later, my intentions were leaked from Cap’s office and
headlined in the press. Instantly, I was beset by resistance, rudeness, contro-
versy, and downright insubordination . . . instead of a stately departure, I felt
like the retiring marshal of the Old West, backing out of the saloon with guns
blazing because every punk wants to take a shot at him on the way out.”33
The admirals got in their digs when it came time for Lehman’s farewell
dinner: They declined their invitations. Only marine officers, led by the com-
mandant, General Kelley, attended.34
Just before leaving office, Lehman took an off-the-cuff swipe at Senator
Nunn, infuriating the new CNO, Adm. Carlisle A. H. Trost, who had replaced
Watkins the previous summer. In a press interview several weeks afterward,
Trost said Lehman’s departure was “like a fresh breeze” because Lehman “was
not a balanced human being.” The admiral revealed that “The things that an-
noyed people about John Lehman were his disdain of senior military personnel,
his tendency to override anyone who had a disagreement with him or contrary
thought, and his habit of playing favorites: ‘Play ball with me and you’ll do well.
Don’t play ball with me and you’re out.’” Trost added, “There was a saying he
had: ‘Loyalty is agreeing with me.’ Well, that’s not the military definition of
loyalty. Loyalty is not to the individual, but to the service.”35
“The admirals got a taste of real civilian control,” a Lehman associate re-
torted, “and you know what? They found they didn’t like it one little bit.”36
The biggest blow to Lehman’s reputation came more than a year after he
left government service. On June , , the FBI conducted raids in its larg-
est investigation ever, Operation Illwind. The investigation’s principal target was
one of Lehman’s closest associates, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Melvyn Paisley. Eventually, more than ninety companies and individuals were
convicted of felonies. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh called the inves-
tigation “the most sweeping and successful operation against white-collar fraud
and defense procurement ever carried out by the Justice Department.”37
Although Lehman was never connected to any wrongdoing, he was blamed
for having “failed to keep closer track of the service’s cumbersome procure-
ment machinery.” Andy Pasztor wrote: “The former Navy secretary’s reputa-
tion has been stained forever by the scandal. His golden boy image has been
equally tarnished, and his political aspirations may never recover. For years
after the scandal broke, his mentor George Bush wanted nothing to do with
him. Dreams of serving in the cabinet of some future Republican president
have all but evaporated.”38
But in early , there was no inkling of Lehman’s dazzling fall from grace.
The secretary and his navy were riding high, gunning for Capitol Hill reform-
ers. In February, during an air force flight bringing the American delegation home
from the Wehrkunde security conference in Munich, West Germany, Lehman
brainstormed his antireform attack. Joining him were Sen. Pete Wilson, who
mostly listened, SASC staffers Jim McGovern and Carl Smith, and Capt. Thomas
C. Lynch, head of the navy’s Senate liaison office. So “cocky and confident”
that they would defeat the reorganization effort, Lehman and his cabal bra-
zenly plotted in front of a “shocked” Benjamin F. Schemmer, editor of Armed
Forces Journal. Schemmer, a proreformer with close ties to Senator Goldwater,
Naval Gunfire 261
could not report on or mention this plotting because all discussions on the flight
were off the record.39
Schemmer said the cabal mostly attacked Goldwater, who in their view
“didn’t have the foggiest notion as to what kind of buzz saw he was running
into.” Schemmer said McGovern and Smith showed “no loyalty or respect for
Goldwater.” Their attitude toward their boss was “almost contempt.”40
“This is going to be the damnedest coup ever pulled on Capitol Hill or the
Pentagon,” Lehman and his plotters exulted. They were going to handily de-
feat reorganization by themselves. They did not need Secretary Weinberger or
the JCS chairman, General Vessey. The cabal “already had lots of crap under
way” with much more to follow. They envisioned an active role for Sen. Phil
Gramm, who, they claimed, “We’ve got in our pocket.” Schemmer found the
group’s plotting “blatant, gross, sinister, disgusting.” The scheming and brag-
ging apparently became too much for Senator Wilson, who excused himself
after forty-five minutes. Lehman and others repeatedly taunted Schemmer with
their blustering of how they would crush the reform campaign. Of this coming
defeat, they boasted, “There’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it,
Schemmer.”41
Lehman admired Navy Secretary James Forrestal, who later became the first
secretary of defense. The Soviet newspaper Pravda’s comparison of Forrestal
and him delighted Lehman, who said the paper “denounced me, saying in effect
another maniac like Jim Forrestal has taken over the Navy. And if he keeps on
this way, he will end up just like Forrestal. Which I thought was great.”42
Recalling his predecessor’s role in the unification battle, Lehman wrote:
“Thanks to . . . Forrestal, the Navy had won very significant compromises in
retaining some independence within the new department.”43 However, less
than a year later Forrestal called those compromises a terrible mistake.
Lehman ignored Forrestal’s confession. Navy attitudes had changed little
during the thirty-four years between its two most powerful postwar secretar-
ies. Fears and prejudices ingrained during the unification fight fueled Lehman’s
antireform crusade.
A Princeton graduate, Forrestal had served as president of a New York
investment firm before coming to Washington. He started in June, , as an
administrative assistant to President Roosevelt. Three months later, Roosevelt
appointed Forrestal to the new post of navy under secretary, where he served
during most of World War II.
As the army-navy debate over the unification of the War and Navy De-
partments intensified in the spring of , Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox
surprised Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson by privately saying he “strongly
favored” a single department. Then, in one of those twists of history, the day
Knox was scheduled to formally state his views on unification to a House
committee, he died of heart failure.44 Forrestal succeeded Knox and took the
opposite position. His testimony was “cautious but firm, arguing against unifi-
cation, yet asking not for rejection but only postponement and further study.”
Throughout  and , Forrestal and other navy witnesses testified
against unification. The hearings created a public perception of the navy posi-
tion as “negative and defensive.” Forrestal became “increasingly aware of a
profound emotional resistance to [army-navy] integration within the Navy
officer corps,” a group, however, that “seemed incapable of a persuasive de-
fense.” By the fall of , the navy secretary was resigned that “some form of
unification legislation was inevitable” but he was determined to prevent “a shot-
gun marriage.”45
In November, Forrestal brought Rear Adm. Arthur W. Radford, who later
became the second JCS chairman, to the Pentagon to lead antiunification efforts.
Radford, described as “confident and combative to the point of recklessness,”
played “hardball politics all day every day.” He recruited other hard-chargers,
including Forrest P. Sherman, who later served as CNO.46 This group, especially
Radford, became excessively uncompromising and complicated Forrestal’s
efforts.
In a message to Congress on December , , President Truman en-
dorsed the army’s approach and proposed a single department led by a single
cabinet-level officer, a single chief of staff, and assistant secretaries for land,
naval, and air forces. Truman’s naval aide and later special counsel, Clark
Clifford, described these proposals as “the most radical reorganization of our
armed forces in the nation’s history.” Clifford later wrote that Truman’s recom-
mendations, despite their merit, “never had a chance” because of opposition
from the navy and Cong. Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Naval Affairs
Committee.47
The president’s proposals made two major concessions to the navy. Al-
though Truman had wanted to consolidate all aviation in the new air force, he
agreed to allow the navy to retain its aviation. “He also agreed, reluctantly, to
maintain the Marine Corps as a separate military branch within the Navy, in-
stead of abolishing it, as both he and the Army desired.” Clifford adds, “In his
heart, he always felt that there was no need for a separate Marine Corps; over
time, I reached the same conclusion. But the political power of the Marine Corps
was overwhelming.”48
Forrestal’s greatest apprehension centered on Truman’s plans to create a
single chief of staff to command all forces. He also “feared that the creation of
a separate Air Force would make the Navy the odd man out in interservice
fights.” The navy secretary told Clifford: “We are fighting for the very life of
the Navy.”49
Freed by Truman to present his personal views to Congress, Forrestal’s
testimony countered the president’s proposals but avoided emotional rheto-
Naval Gunfire 263
ric. The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift, did not show
equal restraint. On May , , he charged that the proposals “will in all prob-
ability spell extinction for the Marine Corps” because its “very existence” rep-
resented “a continuing affront to the War Department General Staff.”
Vandegrift’s testimony “opened up a highly emotional issue in almost
inflammatory terms, one which was to complicate and distort the debate from
that day forward.”50
On May , Clifford advised Truman that “the Army’s position might be
correct on its merits, but was politically out of reach” and that he had to choose
between concessions to the navy or no bill at all. The next day, the president
pressed Forrestal and Secretary of War Robert Patterson to quickly agree on a
“mutually acceptable plan of unification.” Two weeks later, the secretaries re-
ported they had failed to resolve four issues: creation of a separate air force,
navy retention of land-based aircraft, Marine Corps roles and missions, and
unification of the services under a single secretary. When he read this report,
Truman “all but snorted in annoyance and contempt.”51
Seeking common ground, the president conceded the idea of a single chief
of staff, granted the navy the right to operate land-based aircraft, and accepted
the Marine Corps with its own aviation as a separate navy entity. The president
reaffirmed his goal of a single department headed by a single cabinet-level sec-
retary.
Scorning these concessions, Forrestal replied that he “was totally opposed
to the idea of a single Department of National Defense.” He also suggested, for
the first time, that he might resign rather than support unification.52
Clifford wrote that “letting Forrestal go may have tempted the president,
but it would have enraged the Navy’s powerful supporters in Congress, further
entrenched the rest of the Navy, turned Forrestal into a martyr, and doomed
hope for military unification on any basis. Knowing this, the president began a
slow, patient, and skillful strategy designed to move Forrestal as far as possible
without losing him.” Noting his own original pronavy sentiments, Clifford be-
gan to feel that Forrestal “was showing excessive rigidity.”
Forrestal apparently agreed. His negotiations with War Department offi-
cials left him feeling that “further flexibility in the Navy position was neces-
sary.” At the same time, however, he seemed increasingly “under the influence
of Radford and his band of hot-eyed true believers.” While Forrestal was edg-
ing toward the War Department’s logic, naval officers maintained their “pow-
erful desire to remain totally independent.” The secretary was trapped “between
his instincts and his loyalty to the Navy.”
Following the lead of the Radford group, naval officers adopted “narrow,
rigid perspectives” and an “increasingly strident, reckless stance” that Forrestal
“seemed unable to moderate.” Attitudes and actions by Army Air Forces offic-
ers had driven the navy “further into defensiveness and paranoia.” Officers at
the new Air University proclaimed the soon-to-be-created air force’s primary
objective to be “complete domination of all military air activities in the United
States.”53 In an off-the-record speech to a heavily navy audience, an Air Corps
brigadier general said the “Army Air Forces is tired of being a subordinate out-
fit.” He advised that it would be the predominant force in war and peace and “is
going to run the show.” Calling the marines “a small bitched-up army talking
Navy lingo,” he said, “We are going to put those Marines in the Regular Army
and make efficient soldiers out of them.”54
In November, , finally realizing that Radford was “incapable of com-
promise,” Forrestal turned to Sherman for help in negotiating a settlement. On
January , the war and navy secretaries announced an agreement. To placate
Forrestal, the army dropped the idea of a single department. Instead, a “Secre-
tary of National Defense” would direct a loose organization of autonomous
departments, later strangely titled the National Military Establishment (NME).
The three military departments would retain their status as individual execu-
tive departments and continue to function independently. The service secretar-
ies would lose their cabinet seats, but would sit on the new National Security
Council. Of the agreement, Clifford writes, “It left real power in the hands of
the services, and gave the Secretary of National Defense almost no real au-
thority, but this was the best the president could get at the time, and he decided
to accept it.”55
On February , Truman sent legislation embodying the agreement to Con-
gress and “heartily recommended” passage. According to Clifford, despite the
magnitude of the concessions they had won, “the Marines and Navy were still
very unhappy.” General Vandegrift felt “the Navy sold out to the Army” by not
insisting that the law codify service roles and missions.56
As Congress considered the proposed bill, only naval aviators and marines
continued active opposition.57 The admirals had pushed Forrestal farther than
he wanted to go; when they could not push him any farther, they refused to
honor his compromise.
Vandegrift testified that the bill’s failure to specify Marine Corps functions
was “a source of grave concern” to him, and dramatically proclaimed that it
allowed “the corps to be stripped of everything but name—to reduce it to a role
of military impotence.” Naval aviators, including Radford, testified against cre-
ating “a separate department for the Army Air Forces,” or establishing a secre-
tary of defense, preferring instead a presidential deputy or assistant for national
security affairs. The naval aviators also pushed for a second naval officer on the
JCS who, by law, would be an aviator.58
Unrestrained opposition by naval and marine officers weakened the com-
promise and “had a significant impact on the final legislation.” Amendments
“diluted the authority of the secretary of defense.” Other amendments gave
naval aviation and the Marine Corps statutory protection.59
Naval Gunfire 265
Army officials, including Patterson and the chief of staff, General Eisen-
hower, “expressed disappointment . . . about the final bill and their private dis-
gust at the behavior of the Navy.” They felt that the navy’s conduct violated
the compromise agreement. Also disappointed, Truman said, “Maybe we can
strengthen it as time goes on.”60
On July , after nearly four years of exhausting bureaucratic conflict,
Truman signed the National Security Act of . Two Forrestal biographers later
judged the law “a victory for paranoia and narrow, institutional self-interest.”61
The navy and Marine Corps were dragged kicking and screaming into the new
NME. Moreover, Air Force Secretary W. Stuart Symington’s aggressive cam-
paign for a large air force “created a near-siege mentality in the Navy, anxious
to find weapons and missions” to ensure its equality with the army and air
force.62 The air force and navy battled “with all of the skill and tenacity that
their planners and analysts could muster.” In early , navy leaders judged
that they were losing ground “to a better organized Air Force campaign.”63
The B- bomber was the air force’s premier new weapon system. A War De-
partment press release extolled its capabilities: “The six-engine . . . B- heavy
bomber could carry an atomic bomb to any inhabited region in the world and
return home without refueling.”64
Air force aspirations represented a major threat to the navy, whose “lead-
ers, both aviators and nonaviators had emerged from the war convinced of
carrier aviation’s importance to the fleet’s offensive and defensive effectiveness.”
The navy pinned its hopes on a new supercarrier capable of launching long-
range attack aircraft carrying atomic weapons.65
While this fight raged, Forrestal attempted to make the NME work. He en-
countered services with “strong differences over the division of appropriated
funds, kinds of military forces needed, roles and missions, and how the new
NME should operate.” The services’ “traditional parochialism and distrust of
each other” magnified these disputes. Unable to exercise effective control,
Forrestal concluded that “the National Security Act would have to be amended
to enhance the secretary’s authority.” The army and air force encouraged
Forrestal. The navy strongly opposed the thinking of its former secretary.66
With its fight against the air force faltering and greater unification efforts
under way, navy morale was low. Two personnel changes in early  further
depressed it. In January, Eisenhower, who had just retired, was asked to serve
part-time as “presiding officer” of the JCS, replacing Admiral Leahy, who was
ill and soon to retire. In late March, Louis A. Johnson succeeded Forrestal, who
was having a nervous breakdown. “A hard-nosed West Virginia millionaire law-
yer,” Johnson had served as a World War I army officer, assistant secretary of
war, and director of an aircraft corporation. He announced plans to “build up
the Air Force and trim the Navy.”67
On April , Johnson asked Eisenhower and the three joint chiefs if he
should go ahead with building the navy’s supercarrier, the United States. When
only the CNO, Adm. Louis E. Denfeld, argued for construction, Johnson can-
celed it. The secretary had cleared this action with Truman, but he never con-
sulted with anyone in the navy or on Capitol Hill. As soon as he heard the news,
Navy Secretary John L. Sullivan resigned in protest. Naval leaders and con-
gressional supporters were infuriated by Johnson’s “highhanded” action, and
the navy responded by attacking the B-. General Omar N. Bradley, the army
chief, described the atmosphere: “All hell was breaking loose in the Navy. The
pent-up rage and frustration exploded in public.”68
In early May, , an “anonymous document” leaked to members of Con-
gress alleged that serious improprieties had occurred during the air force’s pro-
curement of the B- and implied that Johnson and Symington had financially
benefited. The document also declared that the bomber could not achieve its
performance specifications. Cedric R. Worth, special assistant to the navy un-
der secretary, was later identified as the document’s author. “The leak was a
shocking charge and it generated screaming headlines nationwide,” Bradley
said. After extensive hearings in August, the House Armed Services Commit-
tee dismissed the charges “as utterly without credence.”69 This verdict dam-
aged the navy’s credibility.
A navy court of inquiry investigated the circumstances behind the “Anony-
mous Document.” Officers working in the CNO’s office admitted helping Worth
write it. The court decided not to punish them because they did not know the
paper would be sent outside the navy. After the court recessed, Capt. John G.
Crommelin, a distinguished naval aviator and critic of unification then serv-
ing on the Joint Staff, issued a statement to reporters at his home “alleging that
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary Johnson were intent on elimi-
nating the Navy as a separate service.” He asserted that the navy was being
“nibbled to death.”70
Other naval officers, including Fleet Adm. William F. Halsey, supported
Crommelin’s statements. These developments angered the new navy secretary,
Francis P. Matthews. To him, they indicated an antiunification attitude.71
The HASC convened a second round of hearings in October. In a campaign
that came to be known as the “Revolt of the Admirals,” uniformed navy lead-
ers, including Denfeld, testified that strategic bombing served no useful pur-
pose and was morally wrong. They attacked the B- as a mistake but argued
that the supercarrier was vital. Refutations by air force witnesses “convinced
the majority of the committee.” Bradley, who had become the first JCS chair-
man in August, testified that the real issue was the navy’s refusal to accept
unification “in spirit as well as deed.”72
Secretary Matthews dismissed Denfeld as CNO for his testimony. He retired
rather than take another assignment.
Naval Gunfire 267
Bradley later harshly criticized the naval officers: “Never in our military
history has there been anything comparable—not even the Billy Mitchell re-
bellion of the s. A complete breakdown in discipline occurred. Neither
Matthews nor Denfeld could control his subordinates. Most naval officers de-
spised Matthews. Denfeld, in my judgment, had abandoned, or at least grossly
neglected, his disciplinary responsibilities in an apparent, and unwise, effort to
straddle the fence. Denfeld gave lip service to unification, yet he allowed his
admirals to run amok. It was utterly disgraceful.”
From such beginnings, the navy remained a reluctant partner in the De-
partment of Defense through the mid-s. On nearly every issue, the navy
sought to retain its independence. A  effort by President Eisenhower and
Defense Secretary Thomas S. Gates Jr. to institute new arrangements for stra-
tegic forces exemplified the navy’s resistance. Gates devised a plan for a Na-
tional Strategic Target List and a Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) to
be prepared by the Strategic Air Command staff, augmented by officers from all
services. He could not obtain JCS approval. The navy’s lone dissent blocked
approval. With Eisenhower’s consent, Gates overrode the navy’s objections.73
Its tradition of poor interservice cooperation and resistance to unification
made the navy the butt of many barbs. While Admiral Moorer was CNO, he
boasted to the other joint chiefs about a successful naval operation: “Once again
the Navy has saved the nation.” A civilian retorted, “Well, Admiral, now that
you have saved the nation, how about joining it?”74
Weinberger saw Lehman’s attitudes as consistent with forty years of navy
resistance: “Carrying on the naval tradition, Lehman resented hotly the whole
idea of the creation of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Defense
Department. He wanted to be completely independent, deal directly with Con-
gress and the president, which was not the role of the service secretary. . . . But,
basically, what bothered him most was the fact that there was a Department of
Defense over him and over the other service secretaries.”75
In the reorganization battle with Congress, Lehman wanted Weinberger to shift

from defensive stonewalling to active crusading. A January, , memoran-
dum to Lehman from Seth Cropsey suggested that this was unlikely: “The real
issue is still Weinberger’s unwillingness to deal with this problem, publicly, se-
riously, forcefully. Chapman [Cox] and I have discussed this, and he believes
that SECDEF will do nothing to cross Vessey, and that CJCS will do nothing to
cross Weinberger. I am, of course, thrilled at their warm personal relationship.
But for us, it simply means gridlock. And, as long as it persists, we will be fight-
ing a rearguard action, one that leaves too much influence over the outcome in
the hands of our active antagonists on the Hill. In short, Chapman will not
push Weinberger hard to get mean, and we will have to leave more to Fate than
I think we have any right to expect she will provide us.”76
In the absence of an active role by Weinberger, Lehman had developed his

own antireform strategy. Making reorganization a partisan issue represented
its centerpiece. In private lobbying, Lehman repeatedly charged that Demo-
crats were going to make reform a political issue. Like Goldwater and Nunn, he
understood that the reorganization campaign could not withstand the burdens
of partisan politics. The navy secretary saw partisanship as the stake he could
drive through the heart of reorganization. He began publicly claiming that the
Democratic agenda was driving reform. “The reason this is such a big issue
now is that the Democrats, . . . Sam Nunn and Les Aspin, have realized this is
the way to steal the defense issue from the Republicans and make it the num-
ber-one issue in the next presidential campaign.”77
A campaign speech by Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale
provided evidence. Speaking to the American Legion in September ,
Mondale promised: “I will reform the Joint Chiefs of Staff system. I will stream-
line its operation with a stronger chairman and clear lines of command au-
thority to ensure better management of our defense buildup, a better match
between strategy and resources, and better prepared fighting forces. I want the
commanders who will actually face the fight in Europe and in Asia and else-
where to have a bigger say in our defense policies. And I want the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs to sit as an equal partner on the National Security Council.”78
Aspin gave Lehman additional ammunition. In a speech to the Committee
for a Democratic Majority on April , , he identified Pentagon reform as
an area of Democratic opportunity. “The Democratic party should be out front
beating the drum for change, to give the chairman of the JCS and the Joint Staff
more authority so they won’t always be pushed around by the services. It makes
sense politically, because the public is eager for proposals to cut down on ser-
vice bickering.”79
Washington Post journalist Mary McGrory reported similar Aspin comments
in a July column. She said that he promised the Democratic Policy Commission
“that if they concerned themselves with such questions as the reform of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff system, the ‘prize is the presidency.’” A Lehman memoran-
dum to Weinberger called Aspin’s statement “surely the most blatant admis-
sion by an advocate of JCS reorganization of the partisan, political motives of
the movement.”80
Congressman Bill Nichols closely watched Aspin’s partisan tendencies.
Nichols had labored hard to keep the reorganization work of his Investigations
Subcommittee bipartisan. According to HASC staffer Arch Barrett, after Aspin
became HASC chairman, anytime things started to look partisan, “Nichols
would often have a meeting of the principals, including Aspin, and he’d get it
back on a bipartisan track.”81
Lehman attempted to convince Republican senators that Nunn was tak-
ing advantage of Goldwater. The staff grapevine repeatedly reported to me that
Naval Gunfire 269
Lehman was making this argument privately in Senate offices. Lehman and
his colleagues could not openly make this charge, which belittled Goldwater’s
capabilities as SASC chairman. Lehman cruelly and unfairly criticized the Ari-
zona senator, saying his age and health problems had diminished his capaci-
ties and made him vulnerable to manipulation.
Lehman’s strategy involved rallying the navy faithful on Capitol Hill. In
, eighteen senators had served in the navy, and nine in the Marine Corps.
But the forty senators who once wore army green and the eleven who once
wore air force blue were also susceptible to Pentagon antireform arguments.
Lehman also sought to garner support from those states and districts with
significant naval interests. The navy secretary had increased his congressional
support with his Strategic Homeporting Initiative. Ostensibly to reduce their
vulnerability to Soviet nuclear attack, new navy ships would be dispersed in
ten to twelve new ports. Lehman “had politicians all over the country eating
out of his hand, angling for new naval bases, construction, and jobs.” Seeing
the expensive initiative as traditional pork-barrel politics, critics called it “Stra-
tegic Homeporking.” Goldwater told Weinberger the scheme was “pure unadul-
terated politics.” Despite many objections, Lehman sustained this initiative and
expanded the circle of navy supporters in Congress.82
Lehman relied on dozens of service and veterans associations for lobbying
help on Capitol Hill. A journalist assessed them as playing “a significant, if typi-
cally subtle and little-noticed, role in the complex, protracted process by which
defense policy is made.” Most associations were headquartered in or near the
nation’s capital with chapters throughout the United States. The Navy League,
Fleet Reserve Association, Association of Naval Aviation, Marine Corps League,
and Marine Corps Association were top Navy Department supporters. Their
nonprofit status caused them to downplay their lobbying efforts and “vigor-
ously reiterate the educational nature of their mission.” The Navy League’s
mission statement is typical: “dedicated to the education of our citizens, in-
cluding our elected officials, and the support of the men and women of the sea
services and their families.”83
The associations found numerous ways to lobby without lobbying. They
prepared and distributed issue reports, published articles in their magazines,
and urged members to contact their congressmen. The Association of Naval
Aviation “fought so vociferously” for congressional approval of the aircraft
carrier Theodore Roosevelt that Lehman called it “the ANA carrier.” Following
the February, , release of the CSIS report, Lehman asked General Barrow,
a retired former commandant, if he would mobilize the marine associations.
He also asked Barrow if he would be willing to write a commentary for the
Washington Post, do other writing and speaking, and contact congresspersons.84
Lehman’s antireform strategy included generating publicity. A memoran-
dum by his special assistant for public affairs outlining immediate plans de-
scribed four print media activities. The Chief of Naval Information would place
a Lehman antireform article in as many newspapers as possible across the coun-
try. An article by Seth Cropsey would be delivered to the American Spectator. A
Lehman commentary would appear in the next Navy Times, and Chief of Na-
val Information Branch Offices at navy bases—which were viewed as key to
keeping this issue “visible”— would deliver reprints to editorial writers at most
newspapers in their districts and “encourage their editorial consideration.” The
navy secretary would meet with USA Today’s editorial board the following week,
and meetings with editorial boards from Forbes and Newsweek were to be con-
ducted soon.85
The memorandum advised that an appearance without opposition on a
CNN talk show could be arranged. The three major network Sunday talk shows
would want opposing viewpoints. Other possibilities were John McLaughlin’s
One on One program and Larry King’s Let’s Talk.
Asked to comment on reorganization’s prospects during one press inter-
view, Lehman said, “I think it will perk along for a few more years. It’s the kind
of thing think tanks like to hold seminars on, so it will go on and on. I don’t
think any substantial changes will come of it, because the current system
works.” Lehman thought reformers failed to focus on the real problems.86
Lehman used six basic arguments to counter reorganization. Three sought
to shift the focus of debate to organizational problems—Congress, excessive
bureaucracy, and overcentralization—that Lehman argued should have the
highest priority. His three other arguments sought to rebut reorganization pro-
posals. These topics let Lehman go on the offensive rather than defend the sta-
tus quo. The navy secretary asserted that Congress should be the first target of
reform, saying, “The principal cause of military inefficiency is the micro-
management and the anarchy in Congress.” He described its dimensions: “Ten
years ago four committees wrote legislation on defense. Today  committees
and  subcommittees oversee defense. By actual measurement, current law
and regulation on defense procurement fill , linear feet of law library shelf
space. Thousands of new pages are enacted yearly and almost none removed.”
Finally, Lehman argued, “The proliferation of legislative participation has
reached the point where it is impossible to carry out what was intended by the
Founding Fathers.”87
The navy secretary prescribed two fixes for Capitol Hill. First, “We need no
new legislation; we need the repeal of hundreds of linear feet of existing stat-
utes and regulations.” Second, he urged: “We need Congress to end the cur-
rent chaos of subcommittees and reassert an orderly, strong role in meeting its
constitutional responsibilities through a reasonable number of serious subcom-
mittees.”88
Lehman’s second argument claimed that one problem behind organiza-
tional deficiencies was “too much bureaucracy.” He said, “What has been cre-
Naval Gunfire 271
ated over the past  years is an incredible and unwieldy monster” born under
the names of “reform, interservice unity, jointness, and reform progress.” He
repeatedly cited staff growth: “The Office of the Secretary of Defense, originally
 people, is now , people. The Joint Staff, originally to be not more than
 people, is now , people. The Office of the Secretary of the Navy, the
Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, origi-
nally to be  people, is now , people. The Defense Logistics Agency, origi-
nally to be the ‘coordinator’ of commodities, is now , people. There are
eleven defense agencies, nine joint and specified commands with staffs that run
into the thousands each.”89
Echoing debates of forty years earlier, Lehman said, “This vast bloat has
all been done over the past  years in the name of reformation at the altar of
the false idols of centralization and unification.” His fix for “bureaucratic el-
ephantiasis” was simple: “We need no new bureaucratic entities; we need a
large reduction in the number and size of existing ones.”90
Related to Lehman’s bureaucratic growth argument was his charge of “too
much centralization.” While praising Weinberger for decentralizing authority
to the service secretaries, he criticized reformers for wanting more centraliza-
tion. “For  years,” he said, “the reform movement has had one needle stuck in
one groove, which is centralize, centralize, centralize. Talk about ‘Johnny One-
Notes’!” Lehman cited decentralization trends in successful American businesses
as examples for the Pentagon, then added: “We need no more centralization
and unification; we need more decentralization and accountability through
which the strong secretary of defense can unify all efforts to a central policy.”91
Lehman’s arguments about Congress and excessive bureaucracy identified
legitimate problems. The SASC was addressing both. The first had high prior-
ity. The second had appropriately been placed in the second tier of issues.
His charge about overcentralization, while effective, was false. Reorganiza-
tion targeted the lack of sufficient central authority, both civilian and military,
to make DoD function effectively. Lehman’s arguments would have been valid
for a well-organized entity, such as leading American businesses, but they did
not fit an excessively decentralized Pentagon.
In attacking reorganization proposals, Lehman claimed proposed fixes would
subvert civilian control, suppress disagreements among senior military advis-
ers, and dilute the authority of operational commanders. He threw out one-lin-
ers about proposed reforms creating a Prussian general staff, but he did not dwell
on that accusation. The navy secretary sneered at reformers, calling them “arm-
chair academics,” “parlor-room Pershings,” and “amateur Bismarcks.” Of civil-
ian control, he argued that a new “super-chairman,” offering only one military
view, “would become the de facto commander-in-chief with the secretary of
defense made irrelevant and the president kicked upstairs as a kind of chair-
man of the board on military matters.”92
Lehman said making the JCS chairman the principal military adviser
would make him the “sole source” of military advice. Moreover, he asserted
that this one man would be “served by ‘purple suiters’ removed from opera-
tional responsibility and increasingly remote from operational experience.”
The navy secretary also warned that “suppressing the full range of ideas and
information the Joint Chiefs provide will isolate civilian authorities from the
critical issues and thus hamper, rather than enhance, wise decision mak-
ing.” The end result “would be radically to reduce civilian control of the mili-
tary, and eliminate the freedom of choice of the president in making defense
decisions.”93
According to Lehman, a strengthened JCS chairman also endangered the
unified commanders. “To interpose a super-chairman and his general staff in
Washington between the CINCs and the secretary of defense and president,”
he argued, “adds yet another layer of bureaucracy to the chain of command
and encourages second-guessing by remote, over-eager Pentagon staffers who
lack both the on-scene judgment and the ultimate responsibility for our
forces.”
Lehman’s first two arguments against reform repeated decades-old navy
themes, only with more extreme rhetoric. The navy secretary’s discussion of a
strengthened chairman endangering the unified commanders was a stretch.
In the existing system, the JCS, collectively and individually, had a stranglehold
on the emasculated unified commanders. Much of his script was second-rate;
Lehman’s dynamic salesmanship generated more support and interest than
he had a right to expect.
As with all other navy activities, Lehman called the shots in the antire-
form fight. The uniformed navy “broadly supported” his efforts, although some
admirals and other officers “were worried about the potential backlash to
Lehman’s uncompromising resistance.” The secretary was making powerful
enemies on Capitol Hill, where memories lasted “far longer than the tenure of
even the most durable service secretaries.” In the s, the admirals had
pushed Forrestal farther than he wanted to go. In the s, Lehman was go-
ing farther than the admirals thought advisable.94
Forrestal’s success in shaping the National Security Act more to the navy’s
liking represented the climax of his career with the Navy Department. His
achievements were grand: “He had defended his beloved Navy with brilliance
and tenacity and . . . preserved for the Navy a large measure of freedom from
unwanted interference.”95
Lehman sought a similar historic success. He had reason to be optimistic.
His position appeared more favorable than Forrestal’s. The Defense Department
was united in opposing reorganization and had strong allies on Capitol Hill
Naval Gunfire 273
and in the influential retired military community. The president was strongly
connected to the military and consistently supported Weinberger and the
Pentagon’s opposition to reorganization. Most in Congress were ignorant on
defense organization and reluctant to challenge the military on this sacred
subject.
In fourteen years in government, Lehman had never lost a “big fight.” His
“genius for bureaucratic politics” enabled his extraordinary successes.96 With
his unbeaten streak intact, Lehman prepared for combat with Congress.
McFarlane Outflanks the Pentagon 275
PART
3
Marshaling
Forces
276 Marshaling Forces
CHAPTER 14
McFarlane Outflanks
the Pentagon
It is axiomatic that you must secure your own flanks
and rear, and turn those of the enemy.
—Frederick the Great,
Instructions for His Generals
B ud McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser, recalls that defense de-

cision making had concerned him “since March , , when I com-
manded a Marine battery in the first landing of American forces in Vietnam. In
that war, the military’s lack of preparedness for guerrilla warfare and inability
to apply its strategic advantage represented a dysfunctional planning and deci-
sion-making system. Since that day, trying to improve Pentagon planning and
management has been an important goal for me.”1
As interest in defense reorganization grew, McFarlane wanted the admin-
istration to play a constructive role. But Defense Secretary Weinberger, Reagan’s
close friend, remained unyieldingly opposed to reform. He was also McFarlane’s
nemesis. After their policy dispute over the marine deployment to Lebanon,
Weinberger viewed McFarlane as an enemy and repeatedly clashed with him.2
In deference to his agenda of other critical issues and the coming presidential
election, McFarlane shied away from tangling with Weinberger on reorgan-
ization.
However, two members of McFarlane’s National Security Council staff—
Mike Donley and Lt. Col. John W. Douglass, USAF—were convinced that de-
fense reform was so important to the president that McFarlane had to take on
and defeat Weinberger. For ten months, Donley and Douglass fruitlessly
schemed and prodded McFarlane.
Then Douglass covertly gained congressional support for a presidential
commission, creating an opening whereby McFarlane might possibly prevail.
The national security adviser decided to fight the defense secretary in what
became an epic struggle for the commander in chief ’s support.
McFarlane, a soft-spoken workaholic, had risen rapidly through the civil-
ian ranks of government after retiring from the military in . While on ac-
tive duty, the short, trim, marine lieutenant colonel and former White House
Fellow had served for five years as an assistant to two national security advis-
ers: Henry Kissinger and Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft.
McFarlane began his civilian career as a Republican staffer on the Senate
Armed Services Committee, arriving about a year after I joined the Democratic
staff. We were often counterparts on foreign policy issues. After a year and a
half with the committee, McFarlane joined the incoming Reagan administra-
tion. He was first posted at the State Department in an under-secretary-level
position focusing on special projects and troubleshooting. He moved to the
White House a year later as the deputy national security adviser before being
promoted to the top NSC position in October, .
McFarlane knew key SASC members like Goldwater and Nunn, and he un-
derstood congressional politics like few others in the executive branch. During
his committee service, senators and staffers viewed McFarlane as a superstar.
They trusted him and respected his broad knowledge, professionalism, and se-
rious, quiet, self-effacing style. His boss, Senator Tower, called McFarlane “one
of the best geopolitical minds in this town.”3 Two combat tours in Vietnam and
NSC staff jobs gave him expertise and experience that were rare on Capitol Hill.
With McFarlane at the NSC, SASC members and staff felt that they had
someone at the White House with whom they could talk. Weinberger’s limited
repertoire of shallow refrains had consistently disappointed members.
McFarlane had high standing with his NSC staff. Donley compared him to
Scowcroft in his integrity and demeanor and how he handled things. Similari-
ties to Scowcroft were understandable. McFarlane viewed the former air force
general as “my mentor, and kind of like my father.”4
In May, , Tower provided McFarlane a draft of the SASC staff study on
defense reorganization. During their meeting, Tower “strongly urged the ad-
ministration to launch an initiative on Pentagon reform or else risk being over-
taken by congressional action.” He also argued there was a need to “address
the growing congressional cynicism [of] the Department of Defense” and urged
a broad study.5
“Cap Weinberger is not sympathetic to the idea and will oppose it,”
McFarlane replied.6
Although parts of the draft committee study were incomplete and others
inconclusive, some problems were well documented. The study reinforced many
of McFarlane’s concerns about Pentagon performance. He judged it “analyti-
cally sound.”7
The Defense Department’s recommendations during crises especially
troubled McFarlane. During his first two weeks as national security adviser he
had found the Pentagon’s operational plans to be lax and inadequate. The ma-
rine barracks bombing in Beirut and the sloppy conduct of the Grenada incur-
sion had demonstrated crucial flaws in Pentagon planning and operations.
Although principally blaming policy “paralysis” in Washington for the
Beirut tragedy, McFarlane believes that the marines should have recognized
“the vulnerabilities to terrorism of a force that remained fixed in one spot.” In
Grenada, he says, “It was dispiriting to see purely parochial service arguments
over organization of that landing. Each service was seeking a larger role in-
stead of focusing jointly on how to accomplish the mission.”
The inability of acting JCS chairmen (a position that rotated among the ser-
vice chiefs during the chairman’s absence from Washington) to provide the presi-
dent quality advice led McFarlane to “consider the need for a vice chairman.”
Beyond observations gleaned as Reagan’s NSC chief, the former marine
had a historical perspective on Pentagon problems from prior service. In ,
as a “bookend” to his early landing in Vietnam, he had been on the White House
radio to Ambassador Graham Martin as the United States evacuated its em-
bassy in Vietnam, culminating “a ten-year history of dysfunction in military
planning, programming, and budgeting.” A month later, he served as the NSC
crisis action officer during the Mayaguez seizure off the coast of Cambodia, where
the military made “a dysfunctional response purely as a consequence of ser-
vice parochialism.”8 While serving on the SASC staff, McFarlane investigated
the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission for the Republicans.
Despite his long military affiliation, McFarlane set aside Pentagon politics
and service loyalty to focus on reforms needed to better meet the president’s
needs. The Pentagon’s knee-jerk opposition and an intensifying confrontation
between the executive and legislative branches chagrined the national secu-
rity adviser. McFarlane saw no way to convince the president to overrule his
longtime friend, Cap Weinberger. The former marine did not have the kind of
personal relationship with Reagan that Weinberger enjoyed. McFarlane’s source
of influence was his “knowledge of substance and an understanding of how
the bureaucracy works.” As New York Times columnist Les Gelb wrote in ,
when it came to meetings with the president, “detailed knowledge does not
regularly prevail over personal ties.” McFarlane simply did not “have the stat-
ure or presidential backing to challenge” Weinberger.9
Donley and Douglass both joined the NSC’s defense office in mid-. Douglass,
an air force acquisition expert, arrived in May. His NSC duties included strategic
modernization programs, major weapon systems, and special access or “black”

programs like low-observable stealth technology.
Donley moved from the SASC staff to the NSC in July. He had served the
committee for nearly four years after a stint on the personal staff of SASC mem-
ber Sen. Roger Jepsen (R-Iowa), and a brief tour at the Heritage Foundation.
Involved in reorganization under Tower, Donley wrote initial drafts of the staff
study’s chapter on the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System. His
NSC responsibilities included the defense budget, policy planning, and organi-
zation and management.
Donley and Douglass worked for Ronald F. Lehman (not related to Navy
Secretary John Lehman), another former SASC staffer. Lehman had left the Sen-
ate at the end of  to become a deputy to Assistant Secretary of Defense
Richard Perle.
In the summer of , Congress and the media began heavily criticizing
the Pentagon’s management of acquisition. Horror stories emerged regarding
“$ hammers and $, toilet seats.” Douglass wanted to find solutions.
As an adjunct to his duties, he began to “badger” McFarlane with acquisition
reform ideas.10
Later in the summer, a group led by Richard Cook, head of the Washing-
ton office of the Lockheed Corporation, visited Douglass in his office in the Old
Executive Office Building. Douglass described Cook as “a renaissance man” who
did not think in the prevailing “narrow groove.”
A discussion ensued about the “screwed up” Pentagon acquisition system
and “how dangerous this was to the president.” Cook blurted out: “You know
what you ought to do, John? You ought to get somebody like Dave Packard to
do a study of this thing. Some person with a perfect reputation, and Dave’s the
guy. He did wonderful things at the Pentagon as deputy secretary. He’s been a
wonderful industrial leader at Hewlett-Packard.”
The idea of a figure above partisan politics to investigate the acquisition
mess intrigued Douglass.
Shortly after assuming his new duties, Donley advanced forceful reorganiza-
tion proposals. On July , he and Ron Lehman sent McFarlane a “TOP SE-
CRET, EYES ONLY” memorandum proposing a National Security Decision Di-
rective on reorganization. The high classification prevented anyone other than
their boss from knowing about its existence. The memorandum envisioned the
president tasking DoD to “develop a comprehensive plan for improving current
management and decision-making procedures” for implementation “within the
first one hundred days of .”11 The specified areas of study paralleled the
topics being examined by the SASC.
On August , McFarlane, still reluctant to challenge Weinberger, sent word
to Donley that he was still “working on the approach” and “trying to figure out
how to work-in outside help.” Donley and Lehman were not “comfortable with
the tone of the message.”12
In August, Donley proposed that the president appoint a small group of
outside “wise men” to advise him on reorganization, but no action was taken.13
By then, Donley and Lehman were viewing reorganization as a potential
campaign issue. According to Donley, it became part of a process of laying out
“a vision for what we wanted to do in national defense in the second term . . .
recognizing that second terms provide opportunities to make institutional
changes.” He added that “it wasn’t just that we were going to ask for more
money or that the Soviets were going to be a bigger threat in the second term,
but that we needed to do some work on institutions for which the president was
responsible.” Donley listed four pre-election objectives: “keep the process mov-
ing; make it public; make it our issue, and commit to further action in the sec-
ond term.” He envisioned action to “direct the Office of the Secretary of Defense
or a ‘blue ribbon’ advisory group to undertake a formal review.”14
In early October, Donley suggested that the president issue guidance on
reorganization and appoint a “senior policy group” composed of the national
security adviser, defense secretary, and JCS chairman to coordinate adminis-
tration positions. No action was taken on these ideas.
As the  presidential election approached, Donley and Douglass put
McFarlane and his deputy, Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, on notice: “Soon,
you’ll be too late. You’ll be inside the window. Between then and the election, it
is going to be perceived as a political partisan gambit of some sort.”15
When this maneuver produced no reaction, Donley grew pessimistic: “It is
slowly becoming apparent that the promise to address difficult issues after the
election will, around November , be replaced with the promise to address these
issues ‘after the New Year,’ ‘after Congress settles down,’ or ‘after the personnel
situation is resolved.’ Nevertheless, my response to these arguments will con-
tinue to be that the strategic direction of the president’s defense program should
be set in motion from the NSC and its essential elements must endure any per-
sonnel shakeups in DoD.”16
On January , , the NSC staff took its first external step on reform.
Poindexter wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary Taft proposing a senior policy
group, arguing that the group would help “seize the initiative from Congress”
and “develop a credible and forward-looking position for the president.” Taft
rejected the proposal, although he did “welcome” NSC staff representation on
the Pentagon’s Ad Hoc Task Group on Defense Organization, known as the Cox
Committee. Poindexter designated Donley as the representative.17 Six months
into their campaign, all Donley and Douglass had to show for their efforts was
Donley’s membership on a Pentagon group.
McFarlane remained committed to reorganization, but he knew that the tim-

ing was not right. He also knew that “gaining the president’s support would be
achievable only through the combination of intellectual argument with the
president and Congress’ conveying . . . to him . . . how serious the situation
was. But that combination had to be presented in a way and at a time where we
could get results.”18
Toward the end of , anticipating Reagan’s reelection, McFarlane
“thought a long time about what can we do in the remaining five years.” En-
gaging the Russians topped the list, but defense reorganization ranked high.
Concrete action on any new policy initiatives would have to await the 
election since “the president’s and staff’s attention was focused on the election,
almost from the beginning.”
The national security adviser saw reorganization as a poor election-year
topic. “It would have just drawn attention to a failing of the administration . . .
Nothing was going to happen in an election year, in the way of self-criticism.”
McFarlane “had the parallel frustration of knowing that Weinberger, who
was conscious of the emergent groundswell of criticism in Congress, would
fight like the dickens to avoid a White House initiative on defense reform.
Weinberger simply wouldn’t have it, and because of the president’s affection
for Weinberger, he would yield to him.”
Members of Congress were busily blasting Weinberger “on the emergent
scandal and dysfunction in the Pentagon.” Tower and his committee colleagues
were leading the charge. McFarlane remembers one senator telling the presi-
dent: “You probably could have had another $ billion in defense spending if
you had somebody who could testify effectively for you and not demean the
Senate by coming up here and lecturing us with incoherent testimony.”19 The
degree to which Weinberger mishandled his budget relations with Congress is
reflected in Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s quip: “Cap Weinberger is the
first person in history to overdraw a blank check.”20
McFarlane confronted the president with these problems at morning
briefings “because I had a responsibility to. Tower, with his study, made it pretty
clear to Reagan that things were not right in the Pentagon and that the time
was near when the president would be criticized for ignoring Weinberger’s in-
eptitude.”21
By the summer of , with infighting between State and Defense De-
partment leaders over national security issues paralyzing much of the policy
process, McFarlane gained Reagan’s approval “to engage people outside of
government to study” critical issues, including defense reform. The NSC staff
reached out to a few “old lions,” but before they were fully engaged on de-
fense reform, McFarlane’s approach was overtaken by three developments in
early .
First, Donley’s participation on the Cox Committee clarified for the NSC staff
the Pentagon’s inability to address reform issues. Second, Goldwater and Nunn’s
joint commitment to reorganization convinced those in the Old Executive Office
Building of the potential for sweeping legislation. Third and most important,
Reagan was increasingly disturbed by continuing defense acquisition horror
stories and the resulting erosion of support for his military buildup.
On the Cox Committee, Donley became convinced that the Pentagon’s in-
ability to address reform created an intolerable situation for the president. Pen-
tagon attitudes toward reform proponents also troubled Donley. Critics of the
department’s organization or functioning “were viewed as foes of the adminis-
tration or Cap Weinberger. The Pentagon was unable to separate its animosity
toward critics from the institutional issues that the Hill was beginning to raise
and General Jones had stirred up.”22
Deputy Secretary Taft communicated to Donley the depth and unreason-
ableness of the Pentagon’s opposition: “If the Hill doesn’t produce something
that Cap can support and that would be acceptable to DoD, we would recom-
mend that the president veto it.”
To Donley, that statement starkly revealed “the depths to which the de-
partment was committed to opposing the Hill’s efforts and its total disregard for
the politics of the issue.” As to the politics, “The department was so discon-
nected that it believed the president would veto a product that represented years
of work by the Hill and by Goldwater and Nunn, two revered figures.”
As Goldwater and Nunn began their reorganization campaign in January
, Donley and I frequently discussed their concerns about Weinberger’s in-
transigence and compared notes about our perception that the secretary lacked
an understanding of how the Pentagon operated and its organizational prob-
lems. Weinberger’s testimony that he had “particularly tried to strengthen the
role of the services” flabbergasted both of us in light of the services’ excessive
power and influence. Donley also noted “that the Hill was souring on Wein-
berger” and that he was “less and less a cabinet member to be feared on the
Hill” had factored into NSC staff thinking.23
Because of the Pentagon’s hostility, Goldwater, Nunn, and I agreed that I
should maintain a dialogue with Donley and through him with the two other
former SASC staffers at the NSC, Ron Lehman and McFarlane. Donley and I
were friends, but we also represented powerful institutions placed in competi-
tion by the Constitution. Given the stakes, our conversations sometimes were
testy. One heated debate centered on Congress’ constitutional authority “to
make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces”
versus the president’s prerogatives as commander in chief.
When the two senators wrote to Weinberger on February , , about
their reorganization plans, they sent a copy of the letter to McFarlane. Donley
understood this move: “Letter to us reflects NSC as potential surrogate for DoD.”
He observed, “Because we kept channels open to all sides, we’re in a position to

know what’s going on on all fronts, but now everyone wants to know what role
the National Security Council will play.”24
By early , defense acquisition horror stories had become a major po-
litical problem for the president. In September, , it was revealed that the
air force had spent $, for a coffee pot for C-A cargo planes “that would go
right on brewing coffee even if the plane’s cabin pressure was lost in the air,
yea, even though the plane was subjected to enough of gravity’s G-forces to kill
the entire crew.”25
Under headlines like “Aerial Brew Haha,” the media jumped on the story
of what the air force called a “hot beverage unit.” The New York Times observed:
“Seventy-six-hundred-dollar coffee-pots, with , parts, capable of making
fresh coffee after everyone is dead—this is the sort of thing the most frivolous
billionaire would blush to own. Only the Pentagon could possibly buy such a
machine.”26
Another Times article examined other overpriced items on C- aircraft. “Ev-
ery taxpayer should visit one of the Air Force’s C- transport planes. He should
climb the flimsy $, aluminum folding ladder, sink into the $, crew
chief’s seat, and rest his arm on the $ foam-rubber-and-Naugahyde armrest.”27
The air force was also ridiculed for paying $ for an “emergency light-
ing system”—something everyone else calls a flashlight. “Even at $ the flash-
lights don’t work properly,” a newspaper reported an air force officer testifying
at a Senate hearing.28
On February , , Weinberger appeared before the SASC and down-
played these stories by pointing out that the Pentagon had been the first to un-
cover excessive prices. “We identified the overcharges, and we got the refund,”
he told the senators. The secretary ended his defense by saying, “We don’t want
to spend a nickel more than we have to for anything.”29
“I was interested to hear your remark about the $, plastic cap, $
hammer and $, coffee pot,” responded Senator Cohen. “I am told there
will be a new story with a $ toilet seat for P- aircraft,” Cohen related and
then deadpanned, “which I think gives new meaning to the word ‘throne.’”
Time magazine reported this exchange under the headline “Adjusting the Bot-
tom Line.”30
The Pentagon responded to this story by saying it was not really a toilet
seat but a “toilet cover assembly.” Created for use in navy P-C Orion subma-
rine-hunter airplanes, the plastic case, which fit over a toilet was “designed to
be of light weight, corrosive resistant, thermoformed, polycarbonate material,
seamless, and sufficiently durable to withstand repeated usage and aircraft land-
ings.”31 The $ toilet seat became a nightmare for the Pentagon and
Weinberger, around whose neck editorial cartoonist Herblock of the Washing-
ton Post often drew a toilet seat.
When the president read about these stories in the press, he demanded
that DoD tell him “what the hell this is all about.” Each time such a story ap-
peared, the NSC staff sent the Pentagon a memorandum requiring an answer
within twenty-four hours.32
“No matter what happened,” Douglass recalled, “the Pentagon replies
would start out with something like: ‘Last year, we bought , toilet seats.
The average price was  cents, but this one—’” Another Pentagon approach,
according to Donley and Douglass, was to claim: “It’s not really a toilet seat; it’s
a human waste elimination dispersion device.”33
The president was not pleased with the Pentagon’s convoluted replies, said
Donley and Douglass. Reagan “got tired of his administration being beat over
the head with these stories.”34
Criticism of DoD’s acquisition performance caught the eye of many members

of Congress and sparked various proposals and studies. Douglass belonged to a
generation of officers that bridled at Congress “intruding on defense issues.”
Suggesting “that if we don’t do something, the Hill is going to do it for us, that
was second only to the Russians raising their flag over Washington. To have
the Hill tell us how to do our business, that was the most hated, odious thing
that you could suggest to a professional military guy.” He found himself think-
ing: “For God’s sake, don’t let that crowd, who are inclined to pork and special
interests and are advised by a bunch of staff guys that don’t understand the
acquisition system at all, handle this.”35
Douglass concluded that a direct congressional threat to establish a de-
fense acquisition commission might motivate the president to seize the initia-
tive by forming his own commission. The lieutenant colonel decided that he
would need to create that threat. He and his good friend and former air force
colleague, Alan C. Chase, who worked for the senior Republican on the House
Armed Services Committee, Cong. William L. Dickinson of Alabama, “cooked
up this idea of having Dickinson write to the president and try to convince him
that we needed a commission.” Dickinson’s view would carry considerable
weight in the White House.
On March , before Dickinson could write his letter, Sen. William V. Roth
Jr. (R-Delaware) announced his plans for a bill that would create a high-level
defense reform advisory committee that would report to the defense secretary
and examine the department’s structure and operation. Roth saw acquisition
reform as a key area. The senator wrote to Weinberger: “A genuinely bipartisan
committee, headed by well-respected leaders such as David Packard and Melvin
Laird, could dramatically strengthen your hand in instituting fundamental re-
forms.” Weinberger apparently did not agree: he waited more than three months
before answering Roth’s letter.36
On April , Dickinson sent the president a strongly worded letter that con-
tained many of Douglass’s arguments. “I feel that the present situation re-
garding the perceptions of the government procurement process, especially in
the defense sector, is intolerable,” he wrote. Striking a theme that would reso-
nate with Reagan, Dickinson argued, “Reasoned debate about the need for a
strong defense is lost in the rhetoric surrounding waste, fraud, and abuse.” He
recommended “a Presidential Blue Ribbon Panel on Government Procurement
Reform.”37
The next day, before the White House received Dickinson’s letter, Douglass
sent McFarlane a memorandum outlining a presidential alternative to a con-
gressionally mandated commission. Douglass admitted “that we have too often
in the past substituted studies, panels and commissions for some badly needed
fanny-kicking to obtain the attention of the acquisition community.” He felt,
however, that this initiative was needed to preclude “disjointed and inflamma-
tory legislation.” The memorandum’s talking points had McFarlane telling the
president that NSC staffers with extensive experience in acquisition had “come
up with the idea of a presidential commission to review the entire process from
stem to stern. They envision a commission led by a nationally known figure and
staffed by leaders from business, academia, Congress, and defense.”38
Dickinson kept up the pressure. On April , M. B. Oglesby Jr., assistant to
the president for legislative affairs, reported that “Dickinson has called our office
to press for prompt review and response to his letter.” According to Oglesby,
“Bill states that the president can tell him ‘no,’ but failing to hear that directly
from the president, he is moving forward with his proposal—having already
talked with Senators Goldwater (R-Arizona), Warner (R-Virginia), and Nunn
(D-Georgia).”39
The horror stories about acquisition management made Reagan receptive
to Dickinson’s idea, but he remained reluctant to overrule Weinberger.
Given personal dynamics, only McFarlane was able to work the commis-
sion issue with the president and secretary. McFarlane and his staff took an
intricate set of steps to advance their goals. “It took several months to lay the
groundwork,” Donley recalled. Weinberger needed to see that Reagan and
McFarlane were ready to make a decision, “so that he could get on board at the
last minute and change his view from opposing a commission, to being a shaper
of what the commission would work on.”
Donley said he and Douglass could envision “that eventually Bud would
have to say to the president, ‘Cap isn’t going to like this, but we’re going to have
to do it anyway.’ He had to work the president into the position where the presi-
dent understood it on a level that separated it from his friendship with
Weinberger.” Donley believed that “Cap would have to have some meetings with
the president first to air views. Then the Reagan-McFarlane meeting would have
to take place during which the decision would be eased over the goal line. Then
Bud would have to convey that to Cap.”
As Douglass’s proposal for an acquisition commission gained momentum,

Donley introduced the idea of a broader commission. “At the beginning, I wasn’t
sure that was a good idea,” Douglass said. After much discussion and “a fair
amount of time,” the air force lieutenant colonel “came around to Mike’s point
of view that Pentagon problems really were bigger than just contracting
methods.”40
On April , Donley and Douglass sent McFarlane a memorandum pro-
posing a broad scope for the commission, noting: “Despite the real improve-
ments we have made, the achievement of sustained increases in the defense
budget is proving once again that money alone will not solve all our defense
problems.” They argued: “The current efforts of the Department of Defense fall
short and have come too late to restore confidence in the department and deter
further debilitating investigations and meddlesome legislation from Congress.”
They proposed “an offensive plan to break the current cycle of painful and em-
barrassing hearings and investigations which, while causing some improve-
ments in DoD management, continue to drain confidence in our stewardship.”41
McFarlane agreed with their arguments and began presenting this idea to
Reagan.
In early May, Reagan and McFarlane traveled to Bonn for the Group of
Seven (G-) summit meeting. Between sessions, they talked about a commis-
sion. McFarlane recalls saying, “When you get back, you’re going to see Bill
Dickinson. He’s going to talk about his idea for an acquisition commission. Po-
litical criticism and genuine public airing of serious problems in the Pentagon
are going to get worse and worse and worse. I think we have to create a com-
mission, Mr. President.”42 Reagan apparently agreed.
The White House scheduled the meeting between Reagan and Dickinson for
May . In preparation, Donley and Douglass met with Al Chase of Dickinson’s
staff to listen “without committing the president.” After the meeting, they re-
ported: “Dickinson believes that the president is in favor of the commission and
will agree to its formation.” As to opposition, “Dickinson is aware that DoD
may not support the idea of a commission (based on a meeting he had with
Deputy Secretary of Defense Taft).”43
Predictably, Weinberger remained opposed. Years later, Taft recalled that
Weinberger “didn’t think that it would help to improve the management of the
department, which he felt was being improved all along. And I think he was
also concerned about the political fallout of the president’s appointing a com-
mission in year five or six. He was worried about the political implications of
the fellow who’s been on the job for five years coming in and saying, ‘How am
I doing?’ If you need to be told, you are already in trouble, and if you are told
and it’s not absolutely favorable, then you are in a bit of a pickle. If you are told
and it is favorable, everyone will say it is a whitewash. So he didn’t see, from
that point of view, much advantage in it.”44
Vice President George Bush, Weinberger, and Admiral Poindexter attended

the twenty-two-minute Reagan-Dickinson meeting on May . McFarlane was
still in Europe. The president’s talking points, prepared by Donley and Douglass,
envisioned him commenting favorably on the acquisition commission idea, but
saying to Dickinson, “We’ll get back to you.” Despite the script, Reagan was
ready to decide and “agreed to the formation of a blue ribbon commission in
principle.” The president did not mention the idea of a broad-chartered com-
mission. Poindexter’s meeting notes observed, “President not on broader ap-
proach yet.” In light of the president’s unexpected move, Donley and Douglass
“visualized Weinberger going back to the Pentagon with flames coming out of
the back of his limousine.”45
McFarlane, Donley, and Douglass used the president’s agreement to create
an acquisition commission as a springboard for gaining approval of a broader
commission. McFarlane raised the issue with Weinberger at a breakfast meet-
ing on May . His justification centered on the advantages of killing “two or
more birds [acquisition and organization] with one stone” and being able to
argue that Hill action “should be postponed until we see the commission’s rec-
ommendations next year.”46
The McFarlane-Weinberger dispute on a broad versus narrow scope for
the commission raged for twenty days. Throughout this period, the secretary
maintained a “suspicious, but not overtly hostile” attitude toward the national
security adviser. McFarlane met with Weinberger and General Vessey in the
secretary’s Pentagon office on May . He gave Weinberger a two-page “SE-
CRET/SENSITIVE” memorandum and a draft National Security Decision Di-
rective for a broad-chartered commission. Knowing the memorandum would
be repugnant to Weinberger, McFarlane did not sign it.47 The memorandum
bluntly stated:
This morning the President told me he wanted to go ahead and estab-

lish a Commission on Defense with a charter broad enough to cover the
areas in which we are being criticized. . . . We have a whole range of
issues that are affecting DoD’s relationship with Congress and our cred-
ibility in the public’s eyes. Acquisition is the area of most interest to the
public because of allegations involving very high prices for what appear
to be common household items. . . . The most important thing is that a
bipartisan, credible, outside group reach conclusions that have a calm-
ing and stabilizing effect on our relations with Congress and which en-
hance our credibility with the American people.48
Unlike other correspondence, which usually moved quickly across the secre-
tary’s desk, this unsigned memorandum stayed in Weinberger’s office for six
months.
In retrospect, Weinberger said: “I just thought that the goals of the people
creating the commission were basically to take a substantial amount of au-
thority from the secretary and give it to Congress or military leadership.” The
secretary “thought the commission would be a repository for a number of criti-
cisms of the costly coffee-makers and toilets and all that stuff that we’d turned
up ourselves in the audits but which got presented by the press as another ex-
cess of defense waste and why we didn’t need the kind of budgets we were talk-
ing about.”49
Of the political environment, including proposals to create a commission,
Weinberger said: “Having gotten one defense increase through the first year,
there were a lot of people who felt that was more than enough. There were a lot
of people who simply don’t like spending money on the military. There’s no
way that you can get the kind of military strength that we needed at that time
without strong, passionate advocacy because of the inherent opposition.”
Weinberger saw creation of a commission as the opposition’s work: “All of
these things were, one way or another, designed to try to slow the momentum
of the defense buildup or to turn it in a somewhat different direction.”
Moreover, the secretary saw McFarlane as part of this opposition: “Basi-
cally, I gathered, certainly from McFarlane, that he and other civilian people
on the White House staff were unhappy with the president’s devotion to get-
ting a strong defense.”50 He found the former marine “strange, indrawn,
moody,” and later called McFarlane “a man of evident limitations. He could
not hide them, but he did attempt to conceal them, by an enigmatic manner,
featuring heavily measured, pretentious and usually nearly impenetrable prose,
and a great desire to be perceived as ‘better than Henry [Kissinger].’”51
While Weinberger and McFarlane battled, Weinberger’s and Vessey’s as-
sistants pressured Douglass and Donley. Douglass recalls that Maj. Gen. Colin
Powell, the secretary’s senior military assistant, “was giving me a hard time
and was calling me up and chewing me out for not being more on Weinberger’s
side, for putting ideas in the president’s head.”
Donley said that he received the same message from Brig. Gen. George A.
Joulwan, Vessey’s executive assistant. Deputy Secretary Taft also scolded
Douglass, who thought that it gnawed on the secretary that “these two guys at
the White House—one of whom was a lowly colonel—had the gall to suggest
that the department didn’t know what it was doing in these areas.”
“It was a difficult time for us,” the two staffers related. “The Pentagon had
fingered us: ‘That’s who the troublemakers are.’”52
With skirmishes ongoing behind closed administration doors, Senator Roth

pressed ahead. On May , he gained unanimous Senate approval of an amend-
ment to the defense authorization bill that would create a twenty-one-member
commission.53
“The Senate accepted, by voice vote, a provision to establish an indepen-

dent Commission on Defense Procurement,” Weinberger informed Reagan
in his weekly report. “You recall Bill Dickinson’s interest in a similar con-
cept. Should Congress finally enact such a panel, it could perhaps highlight
our management improvements and savings, which receive far too little pub-
lic attention.” Reagan, McFarlane, and their staff exploited Weinberger’s
illusion that the commission might vindicate Pentagon management.
“We went out of our way to try to make that point,” recalled Douglass. “Over
and over.”54
The procurement horror stories triggered a rapid erosion of public and con-
gressional support for a planned six percent increase in the defense budget.
The House voted to freeze military spending at the previous year’s level, while
the Senate was headed toward a level that would add only enough money to
cover inflation.55
On May , another horror story hit the newspapers. A House committee
discovered that the navy had paid $ each for ashtrays for E-C electronic
surveillance aircraft. Critics blasted these purchases as an “outrageous waste
of money.” In response, Weinberger jokingly suggested: “One of the fundamen-
tal ways of dealing with it is, first of all, not to have smoking on those planes.
That’s one way. And the other way is to use used, but relatively secure, old
mayonnaise jars for ashtrays.”56
On May , Dickinson called the White House legislative liaison office to
urge action on the commission proposal as quickly as possible, “preferably be-
fore debate [on the DoD authorization bill] continues on the House floor.” Other
HASC members made similar pleas.57
“We basically agreed to disagree,” McFarlane said of his showdown with
Weinberger on June .58 Of Weinberger’s opposition, McFarlane observed:
One of government’s worst features is the community in each political

party that I would call ‘them-and-us-ers.’ Comity is alien to this group,
which argues, ‘It is them and us. They will always hate us. We will al-
ways be right, and you must never compromise because it shows weak-
ness. It is better to go over the cliffs, flags flying, than to yield an inch to
them.’ Cap is a ‘them-and-us-er.’ . . . I would talk to Weinberger about
Capitol Hill’s evident unease on defense management—not that is was
valid or invalid, but that it was real—and if we didn’t engage in some
fashion, we were breeding hostility in the relationship, and we would pay
for it in terms of diminished budgets and so forth.
McFarlane recalled Weinberger responding: “You will lose more if you show
weakness. When you are challenged, confront. Take your stand. Go to the
people. Don’t give an inch.”59
26. This Herblock cartoon appeared in the Washington Post

on May 31, 1985.
With the commission issue not yet resolved, Weinberger appeared to make
a preemptive move. In early June, Pentagon legislative liaison personnel on Capi-
tol Hill began talking about creation of a presidential commission on acquisi-
tion. Soon, press articles began repeating the Pentagon’s slant. A Wall Street
Journal headline announced, “Panel on Arms Procurement Considered.” The
Washington Post followed with “Presidential Panel to Assess Defense Purchas-
ing Practices.”60 The Pentagon had convinced the press that only an acquisi-
tion commission was coming.
Reagan joined Weinberger and McFarlane on June  to air the dispute over
the charter. The session lasted only nineteen minutes. “Cap gave a rather pointed
criticism of the idea, saying this whole notion that there’s something wrong is
a misguided contrivance of people like Dickinson and others who are not really
on the team,” McFarlane recalled. He says Weinberger added: “This couldn’t
lead to anything constructive. Decision making and management of resources
are coming along quite well. The only way to deal with it is essentially to dis-
miss it. By no means should we weaken the Pentagon and divert its attention
by a unnecessary, time-consuming analysis.”
McFarlane described the president saying, “Well, that kind of criticism is
unwarranted, and you and I know that, Cap.” At the same time, Reagan did
not abandon the idea of a commission. “Cap was his friend,” McFarlane ex-
plained. “He didn’t want to embarrass him or express any lack of confidence
because he, indeed, was confident in Cap. The president also came into the
meeting sufficiently conscious of the legitimate problems at hand.” McFarlane
said the president was “appalled” by recent operational foul-ups, especially “the
incredible snafus” in a retaliatory attack after the Beirut bombing. Two carrier
aircraft had been shot down, one flier killed, and another taken prisoner in the
Bekaa Valley raid on December , . Chain of command blunders turned
an uncomplicated operation into a fiasco. McFarlane said such blunders “set
Reagan’s teeth on edge. The president didn’t want ever to embarrass his friend,
but he wanted this system improved and was quite firm in that commitment.”61
According to Donley, during this session “the possibility that the commis-
sion might vindicate the department’s policies and management was one of
the carrots held out to Weinberger.” He said the president, hesitant to disap-
point his old friend, “wrapped the idea of a commission as delicately as he [could]
so that it [was] not offensive to Weinberger.”62
Weinberger seized upon the president’s statements. Three days later, at an
Aspen Institute conference, the secretary declared that the commission was
“formed to ‘validate’ DoD procurement and management reforms already un-
der way.” The Armed Forces Journal reported that the audience of former offi-
cials “gasped at Weinberger’s perception of its purpose.” Then, on June ,
Reagan met with McFarlane to address the two alternative charters—one nar-
row, one broad—prepared for his consideration.63
“What do you think, Bud?” asked Reagan.

“Mr. President,” McFarlane replied, “there is a thoroughgoing need for re-
form of decision making in the Pentagon, in both policy formation and manage-
ment of its budget accounts. And it isn’t my judgment. It is that of Congress,
outside critics, academic people, and people that have been in and out of govern-
ment for years.”
“Well, it’s too bad, but it’s something we’ve got to do,” said Reagan. “I agree
with you, Bud. We’ve got to find a cleaner way to make sure that timely deci-
sions get done down at the working level and that we can make a better ac-
count of ourselves in how we handle money and decisions.”64 The president
signed the broad charter.
The White House wanted to announce the commission as soon as possible
to head off reform initiatives in the House. The NSC staff targeted June .
The search for a commission chairman focused on nine candidates, in-
cluding David Packard; H. Ross Perot, chairman of EDS Corporation and later
a presidential aspirant; Peter Ueberroth, Major League Baseball commissioner;
Lee Iacocca, chairman of the board of Chrysler Corporation; and Jeane
Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Looking back at
this list, Douglass exclaimed, “Oh my God, Ross Perot. Man, where would Mike
and I be today if we had picked him?” Donley says that Packard was the leading
candidate from the beginning “in part because of his deputy secretary reputa-
tion as having instituted important acquisition reforms.”65
Packard—a basketball and football player in Stanford University’s class of
—was a hulking athlete and rugged outdoorsman who stood six foot four
inches tall and weighed  pounds. In , he and Bill Hewlett, a college
classmate, borrowed $ and founded the Hewlett-Packard Company in their
one-car garage—which California in  designated as the birthplace of Sili-
con Valley. A coin flip determined whose name went first. An early order came
from Walt Disney Studios, which used eight of the company’s audio oscillators
to produce the soundtrack for the movie Fantasia. The company became an
electronics industry giant.66
While Hewlett handled engineering, Packard was viewed “as the company’s
dynamic manager, thinking strategically and making tough decisions.” Packard
developed innovative, highly regarded management practices known as “the
HP Way.” Packard’s “renown as an administrator” keyed his appointment as
deputy defense secretary in . During his three Pentagon years, he “devel-
oped a reputation for candor and independent thinking and a tendency to chal-
lenge political influence.”67
“David Packard is an unlikely revolutionary,” began a  article about
him as deputy secretary. “He is too soft-spoken, too rich, and probably even too
big, to fit the image.” The “quiet revisionist” presided “over an upheaval in U.S.
defense policy every bit as traumatic as when Robert Strange McNamara came
to Washington nine years ago.” Despite his role in defense budget cuts, he was
“well-liked by the military chieftains.” Business Week called him “the most pow-
erful No.  man ever to hold the job.”68
Before a decision on the commission chairman was made, McFarlane tele-
phoned Packard in California. “The president is very concerned about the
trouble we’ve been having between Congress and Defense Department on a
whole range of issues,” he explained. “Congress is in the process of taking con-
trol of procurement and management issues that should best be left to the ex-
ecutive branch. We need someone of your caliber to chair the commission.”
Packard demurred at first, saying, “I’m really kind of busy.” Later he said, “Let
me come and talk about it.”69
The following evening, McFarlane, Packard, and Poindexter met. The na-
tional security adviser discussed “the dysfunction in Pentagon decision-making
and management” and reiterated the president’s request that Packard chair the
commission. “Well, that’s important stuff,” Packard replied. “If the president
wants me to do it, I’ll do it.” He later said he “wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about
it, but the president asked me to do it, and it was something I couldn’t refuse.”70
Weinberger supported the selection. “Dave Packard was a good personal
friend. I’d known him for years in California before and after his service as deputy
secretary of defense.” The two Californians had also served together in the Nixon
administration: Weinberger as deputy director of the Office of Management
and Budget during Packard’s Pentagon tenure. As to Weinberger’s welcoming
the “appointment of Laird’s most notoriously cost-conscious assistant to head
the study,” one explanation was that the secretary “was apparently operating
under the delusion that all Republicans believed in large defense budgets.”71
Packard saw much that needed fixing: “There were stories of waste; the
contractors were unhappy; the people on the Hill were unhappy. . . . I am not
critical of Cap in terms of his overall contribution. I think that he did a very
important job. But he didn’t manage it very well; that was my concern. He
turned the services loose and that made the competition, if anything, worse
than it was before. The services, particularly the navy, threw their weight
around. . . . The whole thing was not very well done.”
When Reagan and Weinberger met with Packard on June , the president
and defense secretary envisioned the commission validating ongoing manage-
ment improvements. Packard believed the two “wanted the commission to come
in, look things over, and tell everybody that everything was fine and not to
worry.”72
Packard, however, had different plans—something Weinberger may have
begun to understand on June , when Chapman Cox advised the defense sec-
retary that the industrialist, in testimony to the SASC in , had enthusiasti-
cally voiced support for a number of reforms that continued to be anathema to
the Pentagon.73
Goldwater and Nunn saw the impending commission as a positive development,

portending improved executive-legislative cooperation. The senators also ap-
preciated Donley’s report that the NSC staff envisioned making “the committee’s
staff study the starting point for the commission’s work.”74
The two senators also saw risks. They feared use of the commission to cur-
tail the committee’s work. Goldwater and Nunn were just beginning their Task
Force on Defense Organization. They worried that members might now be
tempted to duck this hot issue.
Goldwater and Nunn also expected the White House to argue that Con-
gress should wait for the commission’s report before acting. The White House
planned to give the commission about a year to complete its work. By then,
only three months would remain in the  legislative year, undermining pros-
pects for legislation while Goldwater was chairman. To ensure they did not lose
momentum, Goldwater and Nunn decided to “proceed as if the commission
had not been established.”
The senators saw a second risk in potential manipulation of the commis-
sion through the selection of members and staff and writing of the commission’s
terms of reference. The Pentagon had already asserted its right to have the big-
gest say in picking members. Donley reported that the NSC staff had thus far
“fought off this effort.” The senators decided to ask to “review the commission
membership before it is announced.”
Goldwater and Nunn informed the NSC staff that they were delighted with
the formation of the commission and looked forward to working with it, but
they would not alter their committee’s schedule.
On June , the day after his selection, Packard met separately with
Goldwater and Nunn. Goldwater described his partnership with Nunn and their
“firm commitment to DoD reorganization.” He stressed that they would act
before he retired from the Senate. When Packard sought the chairman’s input,
Goldwater warned him to “carefully ensure” that the commission’s composi-
tion, staff, and terms of reference “permit an objective evaluation of the issues.”
He offered the committee’s support if Packard had problems on these matters.
Both Goldwater and Nunn adopted a wait-and-see attitude while committing
to “a close working relationship” with Packard and the commission.75
Packard also met that day with Senators Stennis and Bingaman and Con-
gressmen Aspin and Dickinson. Each expressed support, although the pronavy
Stennis “didn’t feel a pressing need to significantly alter JCS organization.”76
As the White House made final preparations for announcing the commission’s
appointment, the president received an emotional memorandum from Gen-
eral Vessey objecting that parts of the commission’s charter fell “within the
responsibilities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Vessey wrote that the commander
in chief “should get the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before he asks for
advice from an outside commission. We know a great deal about those issues,
at least as much as any commission that can be assembled.” Donley character-
ized the memorandum as “unfortunate,” its tone and content perhaps “intem-
perate or even in poor taste.”77
The commission was announced on June  in a formal Rose Garden
ceremony. Reagan devoted the first half of his statement to praising
Weinberger as “an individual with unmatched management credentials” and
who “has done a tremendous job at ferreting out waste and fraud.” Some-
what undercutting the rationale for the commission, the president decried the
“public misconception . . . born . . . of a drumbeat of propaganda and dema-
goguery that denies the real accomplishment of these last four years.” Reagan
said he was appointing the commission “at the recommendation of Secretary
Weinberger.”78
Packard perused the bland text prepared for him by White House staff then
drafted his own statement. “I am pleased that you want us to do our job on a
completely independent, nonpartisan basis,” he told the president. “And that’s
exactly what we are going to do.” Packard also noted that “The charter that
you have given us will make possible a top-to-the-bottom and tough review.”79
The two speeches portrayed different motivations. Reagan was focused on
the politics of defense reform. He wanted to fix the political damage to his ad-
ministration. Packard, on the other hand, understood that the magnitude of
the issues overwhelmed the defense politics of one administration and that
meaningful solutions would benefit the nation for generations.
Senators Goldwater and Nunn issued a joint statement commending the
president and praising the selection of Packard. The senators added that they
had been assured that “the commission will be bipartisan, well-balanced, and
objective.”80
Most members of Congress and the media commented favorably, but a
spokesman for House Speaker Tip O’Neill said, “You don’t need a commission
to find a $, coffeepot. For five years, the Pentagon has run like a super-
market sweepstakes: grab all you can, as fast as you can, price is no object.”81
Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts) described the commis-
sion as “veneer. . . It is a gloss; it is a fig leaf.”82
“If Reagan thinks his plan to name a presidential commission on wasteful
military spending will cool off the critics, he’s in for a surprise,” said U.S. News
& World Report. “Even Republicans in Congress who have been complaining
about excessive costs scorn the panel as a mere public-relations device.”83
Others were even more suspicious of the motives behind the commission’s
creation. Admiral Crowe later charged that “The behind-the-scenes purpose
of this initiative was to undermine the reformers and fend off” reorganization.84
27. President Reagan announces the creation of the President’s Blue Ribbon
Commission on Defense Management with (from left to right) Congressman
Aspin, Vice President Bush, Congressman Dickinson, Senator Roth, Senator
Goldwater, Mr. Packard, Senator Nunn, and Defense Secretary Weinberger,
June 17, 1985, in the Rose Garden. (White House photo.)
The Rose Garden announcement did not end the battling over the commission.
The next skirmish centered on membership, which McFarlane, Weinberger, and
Packard brokered. Suggestions for members came from the White House and
NSC staffs, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, former officials, and administration
friends. Donley and Douglass compiled a list of  names, shortened by eight
when Max L. Friedersdorf, the president’s legislative strategy coordinator, in-
sisted “absolutely no current members of Congress.”85
“We tried not to pick any flamethrowers,” said Douglass. “We wanted people
with credibility but known to be reasonable and articulate, who could talk about
reform in a positive way, not a negative way.” The preclusion of flamethrowers
ruled out Jones and Meyer. “Some people we thought met the criteria would get
zipped off, no matter how many times Mike and I put them on.” Former Defense
Secretaries Laird, Schlesinger, and Brown were in this category.86 Their exclu-
sion probably resulted from Weinberger’s reluctance to have predecessors evalu-
ate his performance. Rather, he sought the appointment of two close associates,
Frank Carlucci, his first deputy secretary, and Bill Clark, McFarlane’s predeces-
sor as national security adviser, to keep the commission under control.87 The
appointment of two retired officers—Adm. Jim Holloway and Gen. Bob Bar-
row of the Marine Corps, both known to be strongly antireform—also pleased
Weinberger.
McFarlane and Packard succeeded in adding four proreform commission-
ers: Gen. Paul F. Gorman, USA (Ret.); William J. Perry; Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft,
USAF (Ret.); and R. James Woolsey.
Although the makeup of the sixteen-member commission appeared to tilt
slightly toward reform, the seven commissioners who were not defense experts
represented a large swing block of votes and were viewed as wild cards. Few
understood that Packard’s hand was stronger than it appeared. Two of the “un-
known” commissioners—Ernest C. Arbuckle and Louis W. Cabot—were close
friends of Packard’s.
On July , , Reagan signed Executive Order , creating the
President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, and announced
its membership. The commission’s beginnings in the Roth and Dickinson initia-
tives led many to believe that acquisition was its focus. Weinberger’s moves to
limit the commission’s purview and the White House’s emphasis on acquisition
problems fueled the confusion. Despite the misperception, Reagan had assigned
the commission the administration’s lead on the entire range of reorganiza-
tion issues.
This shift of responsibility for examining reorganization from DoD to the
commission constrained the military in its fight with Congress. Although the
Pentagon still packed a powerful wallop, McFarlane had succeeded in creating
a more level playing field.
One outcome was clear: the Pentagon was now unable to make preemp-
tive moves at the White House. Thus reassured, Goldwater and Nunn antici-
pated a constructive dialogue with the Packard Commission and hoped that it
would become a helpful ally. But they had little time to worry about how the
commission approached its work or its internal dynamics. They had enough
worries of their own in the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Trench Warfare 299
CHAPTER 15
Trench Warfare
Without mobility an army is but a corpse—
awaiting burial in a trench.
—Capt. Air Basil Liddell Hart,
The Remaking of Modern Armies
S enators Goldwater and Nunn anxiously awaited the convening of their

Task Force on Defense Organization. Its meetings would begin the long
process of educating a core group of senators. The two leaders planned that
the nine-member group would thoughtfully analyze and debate fundamental
problems. They believed that the evidence gathered would support reform.
The chairman and ranking Democrat underestimated the challenge they
faced. The majority of Republican members would give priority to defending
the Pentagon and White House and would accept Department of Defense, es-
pecially navy, antireform arguments. On the Democratic side, the complexity
of the issues and the fervor of Pentagon opposition would produce caution.
Goldwater and Nunn sensed the coming struggle when junior Republicans
objected to the word reorganization in the task force’s name, saying it prejudged
the outcome. To appease them, Goldwater and Nunn adopted the neutral title
Task Force on Defense Organization. Shortly after this initial skirmish, pro- and
antireform members began to entrench in set positions. Soon, the task force
was engaged in static, exhausting trench warfare. Barrages of arguments, re-
search, and analysis did not alter frontline positions.
From mid-June through early October, when the Senate was in session,
the task force met roughly once a week to discuss a chapter of the staff study or
meet with former senior officers and defense officials. Member attendance was
abnormally high. Usually, all nine members attended for every moment of the
two- to three-hour sessions. No one wanted to risk missing a key debate on this
high-stakes issue.
When a session focused on the study, one of my fellow staffers or I briefed
the chapter under consideration and answered members’ questions. We dis-
tributed a copy of the subject chapter for each task force member to read before
the meeting. Each page contained the following disclaimer: “DRAFT STAFF
DOCUMENT NOT APPROVED BY SASC NOR ANY OF ITS MEMBERS.” Con-
clusions or recommendations were excluded from distributed chapters to put
the focus “on whether the problem areas that have been identified do exist and
whether the full range of possible solutions has been developed.”1
To shelter members from external pressures while they were becoming
informed, Goldwater and Nunn convened the task force in executive session,
closing meetings to the Pentagon and public. They restricted committee staff
attendance to only those who were working on the study and permitted each
senator to bring only one member of his personal staff to meetings. The task
force also adopted procedures recommended by Goldwater and Nunn for main-
taining close control of all documents, including staff study chapters.2
By mid-June, Rick Finn and I had produced final drafts of five of the study’s
ten chapters. Goldwater and Nunn had reviewed earlier drafts of these and
two others and provided guidance and comments. Several other staffers were
helping to finish incomplete chapters. Colleen M. Getz was preparing the chap-
ter on civilian control of the military under Jeff Smith’s supervision; Alan Yuspeh
was writing the chapter on the acquisition system; Pat Tucker continued to
assist me in authoring the military departments chapter; John J. Hamre was
writing much of the chapter on congressional review and oversight; and I was
authoring the last chapter, an analytical overview. We were scurrying to finish
these five chapters by the time the task force was ready to review them.
At its initial meeting on June , the task force established its procedures
and schedule. All nine members attended. Senator Bill Cohen sat to Goldwater’s
right. Many judged the well-read and well-spoken Cohen to be the poet laure-
ate of the Senate. I had the good fortune of working closely with him. He was
easily engaged in policy issues, but he quickly lost interest in the more techni-
cal issues of Pentagon hardware. When I had such issues for Cohen to study, I
wished that I could write about them in iambic pentameter.
Dan Quayle, the boyish senator from Indiana, sat next to Cohen. When he
joined the committee in , Quayle looked and acted younger than his age.
Capable of book learning, Quayle never developed mature judgment in the view
of most of his colleagues. Shortly after coming to the Senate, Quayle had
shouted at Senator Tower, “You’re not a chairman. You’re a dictator.” The scene
was a Republican committee caucus on the sale of airborne warning and con-
trol system (AWACS) aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Reagan’s first major foreign policy
Trench Warfare 301
issue. Tower was pressuring colleagues to rally to the president’s side. The
chairman’s glare in response to Quayle’s comment could have burned a hole
through armor. Committee members and staff viewed Quayle as a lightweight
years before others tagged him with that label.
Unsmiling Pete Wilson occupied the next seat in the task force’s Republi-
can pecking order. The California senator and long-time mayor of San Diego
gave the image of being all business and tough as nails. Wilson served as a
rifle-platoon leader in the marines between earning an undergraduate degree
at Yale and a law degree at Berkeley.
At the bottom of the Republican totem pole sat Texan Phil Gramm. Al-
though last in seniority, the former college professor was near the head of the
class in intellect and loquacity.
On the Democratic side of the dais, the former attorney general of New
Mexico, Jeff Bingaman, sat next to Nunn. The two other Democratic senators,
Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy, outranked Bingaman, but Nunn planned on us-
ing him as his deputy on reorganization. The young, soft-spoken Bingaman
represented the new breed of Western legislator. Educated at Harvard and
Stanford, he was intellectual, poised, and at ease with a wide range of national
issues. Bingaman was especially interested in advanced technology issues.
Carl Levin, one of the SASC’s three liberals, had inexhaustible energy and
curiosity, which he used to search for better ideas and expose sloppy thinking.
When other senators said, “This is good enough,” the hard-working Levin
pressed on in search of a better outcome for America and its taxpayers. Dishev-
eled in dress and manner, the Harvard Law School graduate’s mind was well
ordered. Whether he agreed or not, the humble Michigan senator listened re-
spectfully to what you had to say.
Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts sat next to Levin. The liberal philosophy of
the youngest Kennedy brother often clashed with the perspectives of other com-
mittee members, but he had earned their respect through hard work.
Overall, the task force was composed of highly capable, intellectual sena-
tors. This group was well suited to the task of studying the exceedingly chal-
lenging world of defense organization.
When the task force met again on June , it entered the reorganization fray
with its examination of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I briefed the members on the
three problems identified in the study’s JCS chapter: the JCS’s inability to pro-
vide useful and timely military advice, the inadequate quality of the Joint Staff,
and insufficient review and oversight of contingency plans.3 Studies conducted
over a period of three decades had repeatedly criticized the quality of military
advice. One of the earliest critiques, that of the  Eberstadt Committee, par-
alleled the description of inadequate military advice identified thirty-five years
later: “It has proved difficult to expedite decision on the part of the Joint Chiefs,
or to secure from them soundly unified and integrated plans and programs and
clear, prompt advice.”4
My briefing presented considerable evidence on the JCS’s inability to provide
useful military advice. The joint chiefs had been unable to formulate military
strategy, preferring instead to do fiscally unconstrained, pie-in-the-sky strategic
planning. Their advice was virtually useless when it came time to prepare the
budget because, as General Jones testified, “each service usually wants the Joint
Staff merely to echo its views.” The JCS had also failed to effectively represent the
unified commanders on resource issues, even though a directive had stated the
ultimate objective of resource allocation as providing “the operational com-
manders-in-chief the best mix of forces, equipment, and support attainable
within fiscal constraints.” In another area with resource implications, the JCS
had been unable to settle disputes on service roles and missions.5
Parochialism in operational matters reflected the JCS’s failure to rise above
service interests. “Each of the services wants a piece of the action . . . and is
demanding usually that it control its own forces,” noted former defense secre-
tary James Schlesinger. The joint chiefs themselves caused the organizational
deficiencies in the unified commands when they released JCS Publication 2:
Unified Action Armed Forces, which crippled the unified commanders. Similarly,
the JCS had failed to objectively review the Unified Command Plan because
“pride of service and allocation of four-star billets” impeded changes to the
plan. Poorly developed joint doctrine represented another shortcoming. Lieu-
tenant General Jack Cushman observed that the joint chiefs “have published
no ‘how to fight’ doctrine at all.”
The staff study identified eight causes of the JCS’s poor performance in its
advisory role. The dual responsibilities of service chiefs—as service head and
JCS member—was foremost. This cause had two dimensions: the conflict of
interest inherent in dual-hatting and insufficient time to perform both roles.
The JCS chairman’s limited authority was also judged a major cause. The study
identified the desire for unanimity as a third cause. Robert W. Komer, a former
under secretary of defense for policy, said this desire “must be regarded as mostly
a self-inflicted wound.” The joint chiefs also had to learn on the job, because
few of them had education or experience in joint activities.6
The closed staff character of the JCS system added to advisory woes. The
JCS system operated “relatively unfettered and unobserved” by outside officials.
It was even sealed off from the rest of the Pentagon by its own guard force. The
JCS area resembled a walled city within a city. The closed-staff character of the
JCS system permitted perpetuation of practices and attitudes that could not
have withstood outside scrutiny. Also contributing to poor advice were lengthy,
cumbersome staffing procedures that gave the services a veto over every joint
recommendation. Like the service chiefs, officers on the Joint Staff had a con-
flict of interest that impeded development of quality advice. Despite the staff’s
Trench Warfare 303
responsibility to provide a joint perspective, tremendous incentives existed for

officers to protect the interests of their respective services. Finally, Joint Staff
work failed to focus on missions, an orientation that could have provided a more
useful framework for assessing service programs and considering each unified
commander’s needs.
The second major JCS problem identified by the staff study centered on the
quality of the Joint Staff. Our analysis found that officers generally did not want
joint duty, were pressured or monitored for loyalty by their services while as-
signed to a joint position, were not prepared by either education or experience
to perform their joint duties, and served only briefly once they had learned their
jobs. The Chairman’s Special Study Group reported: “The general perception
among officers is that a joint assignment is one to be avoided. In fact, within
one service it is flatly believed to be the ‘kiss of death’ as far as a continued
military career is concerned.” The CSSG did not want to point fingers, but
everyone knew that the unidentified service was the navy.7
The staff study further identified inadequate JCS review of contingency
plans and oversight of the plans’ preparation as a third problem area. Unified
commanders develop contingency plans to guide force employment in poten-
tial crises or conflicts. These plans were not adequately informed of political
and fiscal constraints. Komer believed that “the non-nuclear war planning pro-
cess has become routinized, without much imaginative consideration at CINC
or JCS level of strategic alternatives.” John Kester observed that Joint Staff plans
“often have dismayed outsiders who had occasion to read them.”8
My briefing produced lively debate. Quayle, Wilson, and Gramm found my
arguments to be less persuasive than the Pentagon’s rebuttals. Other members
were struggling to comprehend the enormous, complex Department of Defense.
My first presentation to the Task Force on Defense Organization confirmed that
reorganization was going to be a long, difficult, and painful process.
On July , the task force addressed the chapter on the unified commands, the
one I had shared with Admiral Crowe the previous October. The Vietnam War
provided powerful insights on organizational problems plaguing the unified
commands, but that conflict remained shrouded in emotion, especially on Capi-
tol Hill. Believing that it would not be possible to overcome this emotion and
the superficial arguments that flowed from it, I did not use Vietnam as a case
study. Instead, the staff prepared papers on the Spanish-American War, Pearl
Harbor, the USS Pueblo capture, the Iranian hostage rescue mission, and the
Grenada invasion.9
My briefing identified two overarching problems: a confused operational
chain of command and weak unified commanders. Three causes combined to
create the initial problem. First, the defense secretary’s command role lacked
statutory clarity. Whether he commanded the unified commanders remained
open to interpretation. Peter Wallace commented, “Command is so critically

important that one really has difficulty believing that Congress or the nation
could rest very comfortably leaving the [secretary’s] command authority open
to argument. But this seems to be precisely what has happened.”10
Second, the JCS occasionally exploited an ambiguous DoD directive to op-
erate as part of the command chain. The directive prescribed the chain from
the president and secretary of defense to the unified commanders as running
through the JCS. Its intent was that the JCS serve as the channel of communi-
cation, but other interpretations were possible. A statement by Admiral Moorer,
the CNO during hearings on the Pueblo crisis, illustrated the potential for con-
fusion and opportunism. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff, of which the chief of naval
operations is the Navy member, exercises command of all operating forces,” he
testified. “Thus in the case of the Pueblo, the command chain ran up from CTF
; to commander-in-chief Pacific Fleet; commander-in-chief, Pacific; to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, who in turn report to the commander-in-chief of the armed
forces through the secretary of defense.” Moorer had transposed the responsi-
bility of the defense secretary and JCS. His statement also reflected the navy’s
determination not to take orders from anybody other than the president.11
The third cause of the confused command chain was the de facto control
that each service chief exercised over each unified commander from his ser-
vice. President Eisenhower had attempted to remove the military departments
from the operational chain of command. He succeeded in convincing Congress
to mandate this change in the Defense Reorganization Act of , but the
service chiefs continued to call the shots. The chapter examined the Cuban
missile crisis, during which the Navy Department ran operations at sea and
Adm. George W. Anderson Jr., the CNO, showed his disdain for the defense
secretary’s operational role.
The crisis began on October , , when an air force U- spy plane pho-
tographed Soviet missile sites in Cuba. President Kennedy publicly disclosed
the discovery on October  and announced a “strict quarantine on all offen-
sive military equipment under shipment to Cuba.” He further demanded that
Soviet chairman Nikita Khrushchev “halt and eliminate this clandestine, reck-
less, and provocative threat to world peace.”12
This U.S.-Soviet showdown brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Dean Rusk, Kennedy’s secretary of state, called it “the most dangerous crisis
the world has ever seen,” the single instance when the nuclear superpowers
came “eyeball to eyeball.” Theodore Sorensen called it the “Gettysburg of the
Cold War.”13
Fearful that the navy’s handling of the Cuba blockade would goad the Rus-
sians into retaliating, Defense Secretary McNamara went to its operations cen-
ter to question the CNO:
Trench Warfare 305
McNamara returned to the line of detailed questioning. Who would make

the first interception? Were Russian-speaking officers on board? How
would submarines be dealt with? At one point, McNamara asked Ander-
son what he would do if a Soviet ship’s captain refused to answer ques-
tions about his cargo. At that point the Navy man picked up the Manual
of Naval Regulations and, waving it in McNamara’s face, shouted, “It’s
all in there.” To which McNamara replied, “I don’t give a damn what John
Paul Jones would have done. I want to know what you are going to do
now.” The encounter ended on Anderson’s remark: “Now, Mr. Secretary,
if you and your deputy will go back to your offices, the Navy will run the
blockade.” . . . [S]ome witnesses say that Anderson accused McNamara
of “undue interference in naval matters.” The admiral, thereafter am-
bassador to Portugal, said that was not his recollection, adding that he
was brought up never to say such a thing even if he felt it.14
Senator Ted Kennedy read aloud the staff study’s description of the Cuban
missile crisis, beginning with the explanation of President Kennedy’s concerns
about the navy’s activities in conducting the blockade. He spoke the words, but
what he was saying was, “This was my beloved brother, and I am enormously
proud of him and all that he accomplished.” In the midst of the ongoing battle,
this was a poignant moment.
After discussing the Cuban missile crisis, I summarized the study’s analy-
sis of the limited authority of each unified commander. I addressed their weak
control of service component commanders, limited influence over resources,
and little capacity for promoting unification at subordinate command levels.
The study concluded: “The unified commands remain loose confederations of
single-service forces which are unable to provide effective unified action across
the spectrum of military missions.”15
Evaluation of the  invasion of Grenada, which Jeff Smith briefed, rein-
forced this conclusion. Nunn had repeatedly emphasized use of Grenada as a
case study because its success avoided the sensitivities that surround a failure.
The Atlantic Command (LANTCOM) conducted the invasion, code-named Op-
eration Urgent Fury. Headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, and commanded by
Adm. Wesley L. McDonald, LANTCOM was ostensibly capable of integrating
units from all four services into an effective force. The invasion demonstrated
that LANTCOM’s capabilities fell far short of what it should have been able to
do as a unified command.
The nation of Grenada consists of three small islands with a land mass of
 square miles, about twice the size of Washington, D.C. Seventy-five per-
cent of its eighty-four thousand inhabitants are descended from Africa. Found
at the southern extremity of the eastern Caribbean a hundred miles north of
Venezuela, Grenada is about two thousand miles from naval forces in Norfolk
and major army and marine units in North Carolina.
A British colony for  years, Grenada gained full independence in .
Five years later, a bloodless coup overthrew Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy—
who was visiting New York City in part for a talk to the United Nations on uni-
dentified flying objects16—and brought to power a Marxist government led by
Maurice Bishop. The new regime ended democratic practices and came under
Soviet and Cuban influence. In , Cuban workers began construction of a
nine-thousand-foot airport runway at Point Salines. This project concerned
the Reagan administration because Soviet and Cuban advanced combat air-
craft could operate from this runway.17
Weinberger later wrote that he began “receiving regular intelligence
briefings on Grenada early in the new administration,” which assumed office
in January, . By early , Reagan “felt it necessary to tell the American
people” about how a runway in Grenada threatened U.S. interests. He did so on
March , in the same television address in which he proposed his Strategic
Defense Initiative (SDI).18 The president’s message of alarm was apparently
missed by the defense and intelligence communities, both of which would be
caught unprepared seven months later.
A crisis erupted in Grenada on October , , when the government’s
left-wing faction placed Bishop under house arrest. A week later, after Bishop’s
supporters had freed him, he was recaptured and executed along with seven-
teen others. An organization identifying itself as the Revolutionary Military
Council replaced the civilian government, closed the airport, and threatened
to shoot anyone violating a four-day, twenty-four-hour-a-day curfew. In Wash-
ington, State and Defense Department officials feared that the crisis would
threaten the lives of the thousand or more American citizens in Grenada, in-
cluding six hundred medical students.19
On October , the Joint Staff activated a response cell in the National Mili-
tary Command Center (NMCC). The cell asked LANTCOM to provide a list of
options for both a show of force and the evacuation of U.S. citizens. Four days
later, the Joint Staff asked LANTCOM for options for evacuating American medi-
cal students in circumstances ranging from peaceful to armed resistance. On
October , General Vessey sent Admiral McDonald a warning order for an
evacuation operation.
Two years earlier, in August, , LANTCOM had exercised a contingency
plan for rescuing Americans from a Caribbean island. In this large joint exer-
cise, army Rangers and marines conducted a landing on a small island. That
experience informed the alternative courses of action McDonald submitted on
October .
Later that day, Washington expanded LANTCOM’s mission planning to in-
clude the neutralization of Grenada’s armed forces and armed Cuban workers
Trench Warfare 307
and the reconstitution of Grenada’s civil government. On the evening of Octo-

ber , LANTCOM directed a marine amphibious ready group bound for Leba-
non with nineteen hundred marines and the USS Independence carrier battle
group, steaming for the Mediterranean, to alter their courses to head to areas
within striking distance of Grenada. Following news reports of these diversions,
intelligence reported that the Grenadians and Cubans were organizing to resist
an American invasion.
Admiral McDonald’s headquarters prepared two plans. One called for an
assault by two battalions of army Rangers and other special operations forces
(SOF) led by the army’s Brig. Gen. Richard Scholtes, commander of the Joint
Special Operations Command (JSOC). The second plan centered on a marine
battalion landing team supported by navy SEALs. Both plans would reinforce
the assault force with two battalions from the army’s d Airborne Division.20
When intelligence reported that the Grenadians were mobilizing two thousand
reservists to augment fifteen hundred regular soldiers and six hundred armed
Cubans, the JCS began pressuring McDonald to use both sets of forces. Vessey
said the JCS wanted “to go in with enough force absolutely to get the job done
. . . to minimize casualties, both on our side and on theirs. We wanted to intimi-
date the Cubans.”21
At  A.M. on Sunday, October , McDonald briefed the joint chiefs on his
concept of operations, which centered on a JSOC-led assault using Rangers
and other SOF. This Pentagon meeting occurred only twelve hours after the
terrorist bombing of the marine amphibious unit in Beirut had rocked the
Marine Corps. The marine commandant, Gen. P. X. Kelley, pleaded for marine
forces to have a role in the Grenada invasion.22 His colleagues supported Kelley’s
plea, so “Vessey drew a boundary dividing Grenada into northern (Marine)
and southern (Army) sectors.”23
The final plan envisioned the operation beginning at  A.M. on October .
It called for a coup de main, a surprise operation that would simultaneously
execute supporting operations aimed at achieving success in one swift stroke.
The assault forces were expected to accomplish all objectives by dawn. Plan-
ners also anticipated that participating SOF would “be out of Grenada by dawn
or soon thereafter.”24
McDonald designated the Second Fleet commander, Vice Adm. Joseph
Metcalf III, to head the joint task force that would execute the plan. The Sec-
ond Fleet’s headquarters would provide the nucleus of the task force’s staff.
The plan called for four hundred marines to assault Pearls Airport and the
nearby town of Grenville halfway up Grenada’s east coast. Simultaneously, sev-
eral hundred Rangers would parachute onto Point Salines Airfield, the nearly
completed facility at the island’s southwest tip. The Rangers would secure the
airfield, rescue medical students at the adjacent True Blue campus, and cap-
ture Cuban headquarters at Camp Calivgny. Elements of the d Airborne
Division would quickly follow the Rangers into Point Salines, conduct mop-
ping-up operations, and perform peacekeeping missions.25
In addition to the Rangers, other SOF were assigned roles. Navy SEALs
would reconnoiter Pearls Airport prior to the marine assault. Elements of the
Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta would perform the same mission
for the Rangers at Point Salines. Delta soldiers would assault the Richmond
Hill Prison to rescue political prisoners while SEALs attempted to rescue the
British governor general, Sir Paul Scoon, seize the Radio Free Grenada trans-
mitter, and take control of the main power plant near Grand Mal Bay.26
On October , three days before the invasion, Weinberger inserted Vessey
into the operational chain of command, implementing the statutory change
that the administration had requested in April when it submitted its legislative
proposal on JCS reorganization. The secretary authorized the JCS chairman to
call upon backup forces and give strategic direction to LANTCOM and support-
ing commands. Washington’s role in Operation Urgent Fury avoided many prob-
lems that had plagued previous operations. A Joint Staff after-action report
concluded that “guidance and policy were concise and clear as were the or-
ders” given by the chain of command. The report also noted: “The clearly de-
fined rules of engagement permitted mission effectiveness with minimal civil-
ian casualties.” The Joint Staff added that Washington permitted field commands
and forces to accomplish tasks “without undue intervention.”27
Reagan, for his part, “placed full operational control of the mission in the
hands . . . of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” The president gave Vessey and the service
chiefs “a free hand in both planning and execution.” He had taken this step to
avoid another failure like the Iranian rescue mission, which he believed, incor-
rectly, the White House had caused by interfering. This time “from the very
outset, Operation Urgent Fury was a military show; there would be no political
interference.”28 The question thus became: Could the joint system effectively
execute the operation?
The answer was no.
The operation did accomplish its objectives and was rated as an overall
success in political and military terms. It rescued six hundred Americans and
 other foreigners, restored democracy to Grenada, and eliminated threats
to U.S. interests. Moreover, U.S. combat casualties were light. Nineteen Ameri-
can servicemen died during the operation, and  were wounded. Cuban losses
totaled  killed,  wounded, and  captured. Forty-five Grenadian soldiers
were killed and  wounded.29
The Reagan administration proclaimed the invasion was “a flawless tri-
umph of American arms.” The armed forces were “back on their feet and stand-
ing tall,” according to the president. General John Wickham, the army chief of
staff, called the operation “superb” and expressed confidence that the military
was back “on the right track.” Privately, most officers had a different view. They
Trench Warfare 309
saw an operation full of flaws that exposed serious deficiencies in joint

warfighting capabilities. Of this dichotomy between public expression and pri-
vate belief, Mark Adkin writes: “The fact that the United States military had
won their first clear-cut success since the Inchon landings in Korea over thirty
years before was used as a smoke screen to conceal the unpalatable truth that
it had been ‘screwed up.’ If ever the military had asked for a bloody nose, it had
been in Grenada.” Even the Joint History Office later admitted that Operation
Urgent Fury “reinforced awareness of weaknesses in the joint system.”30
The SASC staff initially heard about the flawed execution in informal dis-
cussions with Pentagon officers. Their commentary paralleled what two army
generals who were well placed to observe the Grenada operation later wrote.
According to Maj. Gen. Colin Powell, serving as Weinberger’s senior mili-
tary assistant at the time of the invasion:
We attacked with a combined force of Army paratroopers, Marines, and

Navy SEALs. It should have been easy enough to take over a country of
, population defended by a Third World militia of about two thou-
sand poorly armed troops and a Cuban construction battalion. Yet, it took
most of a week to subdue all resistance and rescue the medical students.
The invasion was hardly a model of service cooperation. The campaign
had started as a Navy-led operation, and only at the last minute was Major
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, then commanding the Army’s th
Infantry Division (Mechanized), added to Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf ’s
staff to make sure someone senior was on board who understood ground
combat. Relations between the services were marred by poor communi-
cations, fractured command and control, interservice parochialism, and
micromanagement from Washington. The operation demonstrated how
far cooperation among the services still had to go. The invasion of Grenada
succeeded, but it was a sloppy success.31
Schwarzkopf had a chance to see interservice rivalry up close. When he

arrived in Norfolk the day before the invasion to join Metcalf ’s staff, he said he
“felt about as welcome as a case of mumps.” Schwarzkopf says that shortly
after his arrival Admiral McDonald told him: “Now, for chrissakes, try and be
helpful, would you? We’ve got a tough job to do and we don’t need the Army
giving us a hard time.”
Service rivalry did not end when the invasion began. Schwarzkopf recalled
that when army helicopters returning from battle landed on Metcalf ’s flagship,
“Admiral Metcalf received an urgent message from the office of the Navy’s comp-
troller in Washington warning that he should not refuel Army helicopters be-
cause the funds-transfer arrangements with the Army had not yet been worked
out.” Metcalf ignored the message.
Later, a marine colonel initially refused to obey Schwarzkopf ’s order to

transport Ranger and airborne troops to rescue medical students saying, “We
don’t fly Army soldiers in Marine helicopters.” Only after the general threat-
ened to court-martial the colonel did the marine relent.
Schwarzkopf ’s assessment paralleled Powell’s: “We had lost more lives than
we needed to, and the brief war had revealed a lot of shortcomings—an abys-
mal lack of accurate intelligence, major deficiencies in communications,
flareups of interservice rivalry, interference by higher headquarters in battle-
field decisions, our alienation of the press, and more.”32
In invading Grenada, the Pentagon had the operational initiative and em-
ployed an overwhelming force of eight thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
marines. American forces also had vast technological superiority, complete
control of the sky and sea, and fire superiority with helicopters, air strikes,
ground artillery, and naval guns. The invading force encountered only fifty
Cuban regular soldiers along with  Cuban construction workers and fif-
teen hundred soldiers of the Grenadian People’s Revolutionary Army, most of
whom “never did engage U.S. forces in any significant way.” Admiral McDonald
described this force as a “third-rate, lightly armed, and poorly trained adver-
sary.” One estimate showed U.S. combat forces outnumbering defenders by ap-
proximately ten to one.33 Such superiority predetermined the outcome, but it
also served to put mistakes in stark relief.
Most notably, the U.S. military failed to execute its planned coup de main.
Quick action was sought to rescue the medical students before the Grenadians
or Cubans could seize them. Washington feared another hostage situation like
Iran. The operation was not a swift stroke. It was not over in hours. It dragged
on for five days. If the Grenadians or Cubans had intended to take hostages,
they had ample opportunity.
The list of mistakes began with incredibly poor intelligence. The existence
of two of the three medical student campuses was unknown to the invading
force. Army forces learned of the second campus at Grand Anse only when
students called to report that they were surrounded and request urgent res-
cue.34 This was finally accomplished on the second day of the operation. Even
more embarrassing, U.S. forces did not finally rescue all of the students until
the fourth day, when units discovered a third campus with  students.35 Other
intelligence deficiencies included the absence of proper maps with grid coordi-
nates and tactical information for U.S. forces. Poor intelligence was blamed for
the “loss of surprise, slow development, tactical failures, and unnecessary ca-
sualties.” Given four years of communist activity in Grenada, Reagan adminis-
tration concern for several years, and the president’s message of alarm to the
American people, the total absence of intelligence is inexplicable.36
Glaring communications foul-ups marred the invasion. The services could
not communicate with each other. Their continuing refusal to coordinate
Trench Warfare 311
communications procurement principally caused this problem. The Joint His-

tory Office reports: “Navy radios could not communicate with the Vinson se-
cure radio equipment used by the Army units, delaying and complicating re-
quests for naval air and naval gunfire support. Soldiers in sight of warships
delayed operations until distant Air Force gunships and Army helicopters could
be summoned.”37
Nunn heard of the army’s frustrations over its inability to communicate
with the navy when he attended Ranger Appreciation Day festivities at Hunter
Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, on November , less than a month after
the operation. He was told that the Rangers could not talk to navy ships in
sight a few miles offshore. In need of naval gunfire support and finding his ra-
dio of no help, a Ranger officer stepped into a telephone booth, pulled out his
AT&T calling card, and phoned Fort Bragg, which patched him through to
Norfolk, which patched him through to the ships he could see. “The Army
officer’s use of his call to direct gunfire gave an entirely new meaning to the
AT&T slogan, ‘Reach Out and Touch Someone,’” said Nunn. More than any
other story of service disunity, this one was remembered for years.38
Violating a fundamental principle of war, the operation did not have a single
commander for ground operations. When army and marine forces were oper-
ating at a distance from each other in separate sectors, the absence of unity of
command was less troubling. But even after marines landed at Grand Mal Bay
in the army sector to assist in the heavier fighting in the south, no single com-
mander was designated. This void led to friction and near disaster.
Some marine and army units were unaware of their close proximity. After
the Grand Mal landing, the marine-army boundary was shifted south to ac-
commodate marine operations. But word of this change did not reach all army
units. In addition, army and marine units did not exchange liaison officers or
establish a communications linkup, and they were not using joint fire support
control measures. An army unit came upon a marine-held position and was
surprised to find marines there. The soldiers were operating under the assump-
tion that the area occupied by the marines was a free-fire zone.39 Only good
fortune prevented friendly fire casualties.
A friendly fire incident occurred on October , when an Air-Naval Gunfire
Liaison Company (ANGLICO)—a team composed of marine and navy person-
nel specially qualified for shore control of naval gunfire and close air support—
mistakenly vectored navy A- aircraft to attack a brigade headquarters of the
d Airborne Division, wounding seventeen soldiers, three seriously. This trag-
edy occurred when the ANGLICO team, trying to coordinate an attack on a
sniper position, lacked the army operating instructions and failed to coordi-
nate its planned attack with the division’s fire support element.40
Special operations forces were also misused during Operation Urgent Fury.
Because special security compartments restricted information on many SOF
28. Paratroopers from the 82d Airborne Division move inland from their
landing zone on the Caribbean island of Grenada. (U.S. Army Photo.)
activities for several years, Congress had only the sketchiest details of what
had happened. Not until , about a year after Jeff Smith’s Grenada briefing
to the Task Force on Defense Organization, did the SASC begin to obtain a
better understanding of the special operations setbacks. Armed with that
knowledge, the SASC passed major legislation—later called the Cohen-Nunn
Amendment—to fix glaring SOF organizational problems. Key among the
mistakes made was the decision by LANTCOM and the JCS to slip H-hour first
by two hours and then by another hour to  A.M., only about thirty minutes
before daylight. This decision by conventional force officers—unaware of the
importance of surprise and darkness to a special operation—proved costly. Short
warning times and inadequate cross-service training produced delays that
forced special operators to conduct unsupported assaults in broad daylight.
Failure resulted.41
How could so many things go wrong?
Arriving at the answer must begin with a discussion of LANTCOM’s lack
of unification. That command had navy, army, and air force component com-
mands, but despite this unified appearance, LANTCOM was a “blue-water com-
mand” overwhelmingly staffed by naval officers. McDonald did have three sub-
Trench Warfare 313
ordinate unified commands, including Headquarters, U.S. Forces Caribbean

at Key West, Florida. This organization was “responsible for the conduct of
joint military operations within the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and por-
tions of the Pacific Ocean bordering Central America.” Officers from all four
services staffed this truly joint headquarters. On October , LANTCOM plan-
ners recommended that the Key West headquarters coordinate the Grenada
evacuation.42
This recommendation reflected existing Operational Plan (OPLAN) 
for an intervention in Grenada. In this plan, the Key West headquarters would
exercise overall command of the operation with the on-scene commander be-
ing the commander of the army’s XVIII Airborne Corps—at that time, Lt. Gen.
Jack Mackmull. The plan listed available forces as an army division, an army
brigade in reserve, a carrier battle group, and a marine amphibious unit. Its
targets duplicated many of those that needed to be captured in October, .
Nonetheless, OPLAN  was not used.43
Instead of the Key West commander, McDonald, as mentioned earlier, se-
lected the Second Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Metcalf, to lead the joint task
force. Two factors reportedly influenced McDonald’s decision. First, Metcalf ’s
headquarters was collocated with his. The distance between Norfolk and Key
West would add time to coordination and make maintaining tight operational
security more difficult. Second, the Key West headquarters, unlike the Second
Fleet, had no assigned forces.44
The Second Fleet headquarters was not, however, prepared to command
and control a joint task force. It was a naval staff “with little or no experience in
planning and commanding large ground operations.”45 The Second Fleet staff
did not include a single army officer. Schwarzkopf and two army majors were
added during the last two days of planning, but the Joint Staff judged that the
headquarters “still lacked needed ground and air expertise.” Moreover, Metcalf,
like McDonald, had limited joint experience. Neither had ever served a day in a
joint military organization until McDonald arrived to command LANTCOM.
Not surprisingly, the Grenada invasion began with several days of “uncoordi-
nated ground operations by Rangers and Marines and the absence of unified
air support.”46
Effective unification did not exist at the unified command level, joint task
force level, or subordinate levels. None of the forces employed had trained suffi-
ciently together, established common doctrine and procedures, or made their
communications equipment and other systems interoperable. Operation
Urgent Fury required “meticulous planning, complete security, flexible and
reliable communications, firm command and control, a high standard of
interservice cooperation, plus a huge logistical backup.” 47 Unfortun-
ately, LANTCOM, its components, and assigned forces could not meet these
requirements.
Jeff Smith’s briefing to the task force on Grenada evidenced major deficien-
cies, but like our first briefing, the second presentation on the unified commands,
Cuban missile crisis, Grenada, and other operations did not win converts to the
proreform side. The task force found each issue to be contentious. Quayle, Wil-
son, and Gramm wanted equal time for antireform arguments to be heard.
Goldwater and Nunn tried to accommodate their requests.
In the midst of the task force’s struggles, Goldwater and Nunn received good
news: on July  Reagan announced his intention to nominate Admiral Crowe
to replace General Vessey as JCS chairman. Given their private knowledge of
Crowe’s proreform views, the two senators had lobbied for his selection. Vessey
had decided to step down on October , eight months before the end of his sec-
ond two-year term. According to a report in the Washington Post, “Crowe’s as-
sociates predict that he will be more innovative as chairman than was Vessey,
who had a low-profile, low-key style.”48
The media speculated on Crowe’s stance on reorganization. One edito-
rial opined that, because Weinberger enthusiastically endorsed Crowe, he
“is not likely to work toward the major structural reform that many analysts
argue is necessary to face current challenges.” The New York Times noted:
“Admiral Crowe has an unusual amount of experience in joint positions,
where his Navy loyalties were subordinated to responsibility to all the ser-
vices.” Meanwhile, Newsweek reported: “Vessey preferred the status quo at
the JCS, and Crowe has yet to take a public stand on questions of reform. ‘I
suspect he may not have made up his mind,’ says James Woolsey, former under
secretary of the Navy.”49
Goldwater and Nunn knew otherwise. Crowe was committed to reorganiza-
tion. The senators did not know what the admiral might be able to do to promote
the cause in the antireform Pentagon, but his selection elated them. During
Crowe’s confirmation hearing at the end of July, Nunn said, “I’m sure he’s the
right man for the job in the right place and the right time. I enthusiastically
support his nomination.”50
Goldwater occupied a lonely position as the reorganization point man. He could

not confide in his Republican colleagues, most of whom were antireform. His
military friends also did not support his efforts. The chairman turned to a few
close friends for reassurance, including Ben Schemmer, editor of the Armed
Forces Journal. On July , Goldwater sent Schemmer a copy of the staff study.
An accompanying letter said, “What we have found, frankly, is frightening—
not just in the Joint Chiefs of Staff or procurement—but in the whole Depart-
ment of Defense structure.”51
Goldwater had a second reason for sending Schemmer the study: “Now
out of this whole effort, whether we decide to make any changes or whether
Trench Warfare 315
the politics of the armed services will be too strong to allow it, will come a
delineation of the problems that I think should be put into a textbook form some-
time. With this thought in mind, I turn to you, because you know exactly what I
am talking about.”
Goldwater concluded by saying: “I think this study will have a bearing on
the future of our country and a strong bearing on the future of freedom. About
all I can leave this office with is the knowledge that I did something in  years
to try to perpetuate freedom.”
On July , Schemmer responded: “All I can say is ‘Wow!’ . . . let me express
my strongest possible compliments to you and Sam Nunn and Jim Locher for a
landmark work—clear, concise, eminently readable. As a professional word
merchant, I’m jealous, Barry.”52
Schemmer offered to help: “Barry, I would greatly look forward to helping
you bring this whole problem into focus. Indeed, that could be one of your great-
est services to this nation. If some action is not taken now, we are going to
drown in our own bureaucracy or be strangled with our own rope.”
The task force meeting on August  focused on the staff study’s chapter on the
Office of the Secretary of Defense. Having served in OSD for ten years, I knew
its organizational problems. My briefing focused on four deficiencies. The first
and foremost was OSD’s limited ability to integrate the four services’ capabili-
ties along mission lines. In writing the OSD chapter, I had devoted considerable
attention to the absence of a mission focus in the Pentagon. I coined the phrase
“mission integration” to describe the desired “ability of the services to take
unified action to discharge the major military missions of the United States.”
The staff study contended that mission integration—not unification or cen-
tralization—was the real goal of reorganization. Comparing the three, the re-
port argued that “unification relates to form; centralization relates to process;
and mission integration relates to substance.”53 The OSD’s organization along
functional lines, such as manpower and research and development, had pro-
duced an exclusive focus on managing functional activities.
The staff study targeted inadequate supervision and coordination of many
OSD offices as a second deficiency. The defense secretary’s extensive span of
control—forty-one subordinates reported to him—caused this problem. Essen-
tially, many senior officials reported to no one.
Personnel problems existed in OSD as well. Inexperienced political appoin-
tees were a source of concern. High turnover rates and prolonged vacancies in
such positions further undermined effective leadership. The turnover rate in
the position of assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs
exemplified the problem. Since the position’s establishment in , the length
of service of appointees averaged only . years. The staff study also identified
three problems in OSD’s performance: micromanagement of service programs,
lack of coalition-oriented planning and programming, and inadequate review

of non-nuclear contingency plans.
In writing the OSD chapter, I had conducted extensive interviews in the
Pentagon. These private sessions contrast sharply with public testimony and
conversations. Publicly, officials and officers adhered to the department’s for-
mal opposition. In private, however, they expressed significant support for re-
form. In preparing our study, the staff privately interviewed more than five
hundred officials and officers. Roughly three-fourths were troubled by the
department’s organizational deficiencies, but they were less certain as to the
required fixes. Although these private views could not be made part of the public
record, they did inform the staff’s work. The knowledge that a significant num-
ber of Pentagon workers shared our perspective on the magnitude of the prob-
lems also reassured us.
After the four-week August recess, the task force reconvened on September .
No senator had changed his view during the break. Antireform senators had
developed a new line of attack, claiming that the staff study’s analytical meth-
odology was flawed. For the next session, I prepared a detailed rebuttal to that
assertion, which satisfied a majority of the task force.54
This session examined organizational problems in the military depart-
ments. Their excessive power was causing problems in other components. But
the staff study also focused on major problems in the military departments them-
selves. The most important deficiency centered on confusion about the role of
the secretary of each department. When Congress passed the National Secu-
rity Act of , it did not prescribe the relationship between the secretary of
defense and his service secretary subordinates. According to John Kester, “The
role secretaries of defense have allocated for service secretaries has never been
fixed.” Most troubling, the absence of specificity had led to efforts by service
secretaries to become independent from the defense secretary.55
A second problem focused on the existence of two headquarters staffs at
the top of the Army and Air Force Departments and three at the apex of the
Navy Department. One staff was the civilian secretariat; the other, a military
staff, worked for the chief of staff. The Navy Department had three staffs be-
cause it had two military staffs, one under the CNO and a second under the
marine commandant. This structure, essentially a holdover from World War II
arrangements, was viewed as leading to unnecessary staff layers and duplica-
tion of effort.56
The task force met on September  to hear the staff’s analysis on congres-
sional review and oversight of defense. This chapter interested the members
more than any other. They lived these problems every day. In examining defi-
ciencies on Capitol Hill, senators did not have to worry about protecting the
Pentagon, White House, or their party. In briefing the chapter on Congress,
Trench Warfare 317
John Hamre focused on how the budget process dominated Congress and over-
whelmed other legislative tasks. He quoted an earlier Nunn statement that
“the time and workload of the Senate—and of its committees—are being domi-
nated and devoured by this task alone.” Hamre explained how duplicative com-
mittee reviews and blurred committee jurisdictions were undermining the
process and adding to its complexity and length. He talked about the budget
review’s focus on artificial accounting inputs, the problems of reviewing each
service’s budget in isolation, micromanagement, inadequate Senate review
of presidential appointments in the Pentagon, and many other problems. The
task force was unified in its view that serious congressional deficiencies de-
manded attention.57
Two chapters of the staff study dealt with DoD decision-making processes:
the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) and the acquisi-
tion system. The task force turned its attention to these chapters on September
. The staff study addressed these primarily to provide background for the
members on how the department operated. The task force’s jurisdiction did
not include acquisition, which a subcommittee under Quayle’s leadership was
addressing. Moreover, the task force was unlikely to recommend changes to
internal Pentagon procedures, such as the PPBS.
On October , the task force held its seventh and final session on the staff
study to consider the chapters on civilian control of the military and the over-
view analysis. Colleen Getz’s work on civilian control revealed a “lack of con-
sensus on a definition of civilian control” throughout American history. She
found this ambiguity had “not undermined its effectiveness as one of the gov-
erning tenets of the American republic.”58
Although the study concluded that “the concept of civilian control is un-
questioned throughout the Department of Defense today,” it argued against
complacency: “Any changes to the U.S. military establishment must be care-
fully assessed for their impact on civil-military relations” and “No changes can
be accepted which diminish civilian control.” In applying this yardstick to the
study’s recommended changes, we concluded that they “either strengthen ci-
vilian control over the military or leave the balance as it currently exists.”
The overview analysis looked across all of DoD’s components and the staff
study chapters in search of major problem themes. It identified ten: the im-
balance of emphasis on functions versus missions, the imbalance of service
versus joint interests, interservice logrolling, the predominance of program-
ming and budgeting, the lack of clarity of strategic goals, insufficient mecha-
nisms for change, the inadequate quality of political appointees and joint-
duty military personnel, the failure to clarify the desired division of work
among components, excessive spans of control by senior officials and the ab-
sence of effective hierarchical structures, and the insufficient power and
influence of the secretary of defense.59
The overview analysis also established a historical context for these prob-
lems. It concluded, “The problems currently plaguing the Department of De-
fense have not just recently evolved. For the most part, they have been evident
for much of this century.”
During September, the magnitude of the reorganization challenge became

clearer to Goldwater, Nunn, Finn, Smith, and me. After eight months of care-
fully laying the groundwork and more than three months of task force meet-
ings, Goldwater, Nunn, and Cohen remained the only committed members.
The three antireform senators—Quayle, Wilson, and Gramm—had not budged
an inch. Bingaman, Levin, and Kennedy had exhibited open minds, but re-
mained tentative. They were looking for reassurance before taking on the en-
tire military establishment on this sacred issue. Bingaman’s comment to me
after one session reflected his concern: “Jim, your arguments and proposals
appear sound, but all the generals and admirals across the river in the Penta-
gon are against this.”
Although Goldwater and Nunn had gained ground during the summer,
the pace was excruciatingly slow. Moreover, the energy expended—particu-
larly by the few staffers—for every small step forward was enormous. Especially
worrisome was the knowledge that our adversaries—the Pentagon and its sup-
porters—had vastly greater resources to throw into the fight. They could write
more papers, do more research, pose more questions, lobby harder, speak to
more Rotary Clubs, influence more reporters, write more articles, and rally more
retired generals and admirals.
The task force’s meetings and members’ individual inquiries generated a
staggering workload for the staff. Only Rick Finn, Barbara Brown, and I were
available full time to write the staff study, prepare task force sessions, and re-
spond to members’ questions and requests for research. The question-and-an-
swer format of congressional hearings had popularized the saying, “One idiot
can ask more questions than can be answered by ten angels.” This saying took
on new meaning for Finn and me as we fielded unending questions. The reor-
ganization effort made us feel as if we were on a merry-go-round that was go-
ing faster and faster—and there was no getting off. The unbelievable pace forced
Finn and me to work twelve-hour days seven days a week from mid-June
through mid-September—eighty-nine days without a single day off.
That schedule ended when my doctor put me in the hospital for two days
because of physical exhaustion. I slept for almost forty-eight hours. Finn,
Brown, and I kept my hospitalization secret lest reform opponents recognize
our weariness and redouble their efforts.
As Goldwater and Nunn looked beyond the task force to the full commit-
tee, the Republican side looked overwhelmingly antireform, and Democrats were
not evidencing a groundswell of enthusiasm. John Stennis, the former chair-
Trench Warfare 319
man, appeared to be a reorganization opponent. The aged Mississippian’s stance

concerned Nunn. Stennis had taken Nunn under his wing when the Georgia
Democrat was first elected to the Senate and took a special interest in his ca-
reer. Nunn did not look forward to fighting his mentor over the emotional issue
of Pentagon reform.60
Goldwater and Nunn were facing the same powerful parochial interests
that had defeated Truman and Eisenhower. The senators were also heading for
the same bitter setback—unless they could focus the debate on the issues and
facts and thereby surmount the overwhelming power politics, partisan pleas,
and emotional appeals of the Pentagon and its supporters.
Goldwater, Nunn, Finn, Smith, and I discerned that if we stayed in the
trenches in a war of attrition, reorganization would be buried. We understood
that we would have to adopt an innovative strategy to have any realistic chance
of gaining sufficient support in the committee. Development of that strategy
became a high-priority, do-or-die task.
CHAPTER 16
Playing the Media Card
Four hostile newspapers were more to be feared
than a thousand bayonets.
—Napoleon
B y mid-September, Senators Goldwater and Nunn had pieced together a two-

part strategy for breaking out of the trench warfare of reorganization. They
planned to enlarge the battlefield beyond the halls of government by capturing
the media’s attention and to accelerate the education of members of the Task
Force on Defense Organization and reassure them on this controversial under-
taking.
The two senators believed that print and television reporting on reform
would be overwhelmingly favorable, spark public interest, and build pressure
for change. This would differ with the reporting of the postwar debates, when
influential journalists had opposed unification. Engaging the media and the
public, in Goldwater and Nunn’s view, offered the best hope for breaking the
Pentagon’s stranglehold.
The media had dutifully reported each step since General Jones’s call for
reform in , but reorganization was not considered a big story. Complex
issues and conflicting testimony were not easily explained in short newspaper
or television reports. Reorganization had initially lacked big-name sponsors.
No key congressmen had led the House charge, where only a low-visibility
subcommittee pursued reform. On the Senate side, where national figures were
involved, Tower’s abortive efforts had confused observers. The right ingredi-
ents were not there to grab headlines. With the clout and charisma Goldwater
and Nunn could bring to bear, that situation was about to change.
The media generally had seen reorganization in a positive light. Favorable
articles had emerged to balance self-serving Pentagon commentary. Service
Playing the Media Card 321
spokesmen, retired officers, and military associations had written numerous

antireform articles and editorials. Intense service lobbying, especially by the
navy, complemented these efforts. By the early fall of , the public informa-
tion battle had produced a stalemate.
Goldwater and Nunn could not afford a stalemate. That outcome meant
victory for the status quo. They had to wage and win a public information battle
the prize of which was votes in Congress. The two senators had to create a
media drumbeat in favor of change. They needed front-page stories that edu-
cated opinion makers in the nation’s capital and motivated people back home
to write their senators. But what would arouse the media’s interest? What kind
of information did the media need?
The answer to these questions, Goldwater and Nunn decided, was to pub-
licly release the Senate Armed Services Committee’s staff study. Although de-
signed for internal use, the study was not classified and could be released. In
the two senators’ view, the study comprehensively, intelligently, and fairly ex-
amined the full range of issues and evaluated every side of each of them. The
study would make public all of the ammunition that Goldwater and Nunn had.
They were convinced these materials told an explosive story.
Before releasing the study, however, Goldwater and Nunn needed to set
the stage. They did not want to simply dump this massive document on the
media and public. They had to be fed some tantalizing, bite-sized portions that
would capture their attention and have them waiting eagerly for the next bite.
The chairman and ranking Democrat decided to deliver a series of speeches
on the Senate floor, the setting where they could best reach and inform their
colleagues, but also one where the large number of reporters in the Senate
Press Gallery would hear their message. In a country colloquialism unusual
for him, Nunn described the reason for the speeches with a favorite saying of
Louisiana senator Russell Long: “You have to put the corn out for the hogs.”
Using the study’s most powerful research and analysis, the floor speeches would
vividly describe fundamental problems in the Department of Defense. Solutions
would not be offered or discussed. This approach adhered to an old congres-
sional dictum: “Don’t solve a problem for people before they know they’ve got
one.” The speeches had to convince the Senate, media, opinion makers, and
public that crippling problems existed. Selling solutions could wait.1
To magnify attention and demonstrate the bipartisan nature of their
work, Goldwater and Nunn elected to present their statements jointly. They
said their delivery would be like that of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley,
referring to the popular and trusted television news coanchors of the s
and s. Either senator by himself would have ranked as the public figure
with the greatest stature on defense to call for Pentagon reform since President
Eisenhower in . Together, these two defense giants were sure to attract
enormous attention.
In their efforts to generate favorable coverage, Goldwater and Nunn had two
advantages that reorganizers of the s and s did not have. First, by
, the media had developed a critical attitude toward the Reagan admin-
istration’s Pentagon. Repeated operational setbacks and procurement fiascos
had helped build this negative view.
Strained relations with the Pentagon intensified the media’s unfavorable
attitude. An article appearing in the National Journal in February, , described
the press’s viewpoint: “The Pentagon had become increasingly less forthcom-
ing during the Reagan administration. Documents routinely released during
the Carter administration are no longer available. The specter of polygraph tests
has been used to discourage leaks to the press. Weinberger and Michael I. Burch,
assistant defense secretary for public affairs, are markedly less forthcoming than
their predecessors.”2
The press blamed Weinberger for the rift. He was described as having
“steadily become more reticent in public and has gradually sought, with some
success, to tighten the controls over the flow of information from the Defense
Department.” Weinberger was seen as “fundamentally secretive” and “instinc-
tively” prone to personally control the flow of information to the press.3 In fact,
repeated leaks of highly classified documents were the main force behind the
secretary’s efforts to clamp down on press access to Pentagon information.
Journalists’ skepticism of the secretary and his department would provide
Goldwater and Nunn a receptive audience for their thoroughly researched pre-
sentations.
Goldwater and Nunn’s second advantage over their predecessors was the
absence of influential opponents among journalists. In the immediate postwar
period, strong press voices had opposed President Truman’s plans for a unified
military despite the fact that a large majority of newspapers and the public be-
lieved that some form of unification was desirable. This widespread opinion origi-
nated with the Pearl Harbor catastrophe, which “was seen to have proven the
need for unification from the point of view of combat effectiveness.” However,
there was confusion over the preferred form of unification, and the number of
people having firm opinions was “very small and divided.” This indecisiveness
provided an opening for negative press opinion.
Three leading military correspondents—Hanson W. Baldwin, Walter Millis,
and George Fielding Eliot—had supported the navy’s views on organization.
Baldwin had won a Pulitzer Prize in  for his World War II reporting from
the Pacific. After the war, he became one of the most important and powerful
civilian voices on military affairs. According to fellow journalist Arthur T.
Hadley, Baldwin’s reporting influenced the outcome of the unification fight:
“The New York Times alone among the press had a full-time military affairs cor-
respondent in addition to its Pentagon correspondent. That able man was
Hanson Baldwin, a  graduate of the Naval Academy. Other reporters with
less knowledge looked to him for guidance. His paper more than any other set
the public stage for the defense debate.” Hadley was certain that Baldwin “never
consciously distorted the news.” He found, however, that Baldwin’s “uncon-
scious pro-Navy bias time and again had a chilling effect on efforts of President
Truman [and others] to unify the armed forces efficiently.”4
In April, , Baldwin castigated Truman for having “rapped the knuck-
les of the admirals” for opposing “his War Department-Navy Department
merger project.” He wrote that the president’s “outburst” had “exacerbated
. . . the long and bitter fight.” Baldwin reported that some navy supporters felt
that “the president, by his inferential invocation of the ‘gag rule’ over the Navy
and his charges of Navy lobbying, so aroused congressional friends of the Navy
that he administered, at least for this session of Congress, the coup de grace to
the very legislation he espouses.”
Of Truman’s proposed legislation as revised by a Senate subcommittee,
Baldwin opined, “The Navy has held out consistently—and, in this writer’s opin-
ion, correctly—for four fundamental principles.” Baldwin’s article elaborated
on each of the four: opposition to a single chief of staff, separate administration
of each military department, protection of the Marine Corps from elimination,
and the navy’s control of its own aviation. “These four points are major, not
only to the Navy but to the nation,” Baldwin argued.5
Goldwater and Nunn did not anticipate such determined journalistic op-
position.
Throughout their reorganization work, Goldwater and Nunn had attempted

to be low-key, objective, and fair. Anxious to find an opening for working con-
structively with the Pentagon, they refrained from overstating their case.
Nevertheless, their floor statements would need some zing if the senators were
to arouse the media’s interest. Although colorful statements might risk further
alienation of the Pentagon and its Capitol Hill supporters, Goldwater and Nunn
decided to take that risk. They pressed Arnold Punaro into service to help cre-
ate the needed zing. Before becoming the committee’s minority staff director,
Punaro had handled military public affairs on Nunn’s personal staff. He had a
keen eye for the turn of phrase that would make a headline or memorable quote.
Finn, Smith, Punaro, and I realized that Goldwater’s and Nunn’s speeches
would require different styles. The bold, feisty Goldwater would prefer more
colorful, blunt language. The cautious, meticulous Nunn would prefer more
precise, diplomatic statements. Having worked for Nunn for thirteen years,
Punaro could best judge language that Nunn would be comfortable using. In
reading drafts, he would say, “Well, no, Senator Nunn won’t ever say this, but
we can get Senator Goldwater to say this.” According to Nunn: “Locher slipped
things into Goldwater’s speeches that I was shocked with. Goldwater liked them,
though. I remember seeing him reading those speeches, and every now and
then he’d come to a corker and he’d kind of like it and he’d read it again.”6
In six straight Senate sessions starting Tuesday, October , Goldwater and
Nunn took the floor to focus attention on their crusade. Their first speeches
addressed problems regarding the congressional role in national security. The
two senators had decided that before criticizing the Pentagon, Congress’s per-
formance should be critically examined. The following day, they explained the
long-term nature of America’s military problems, starting with the Spanish-
American War. The next three sets of statements hammered on deficiencies in
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and unified commands, the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, and the Pentagon budget process. Goldwater and Nunn devoted the
last day to summarizing their earlier statements and describing the legislative
process they had begun.
In introducing his first speech, Goldwater told his colleagues and all con-
cerned Americans, “You will be shocked at the serious deficiencies in the orga-
nization and procedures of the Department of Defense and the Congress.” He
then uttered two sentences that the press and others often repeated: “If we
have to fight tomorrow, these problems will cause Americans to die unneces-
sarily. Even more, they may cause us to lose the fight.”7
“Congress is compounding the problems in the Department of Defense,”
said Goldwater, “and major changes in the way we conduct our business are
long overdue.” He addressed how the budget process dominated Congress’s
agenda and “is seriously degrading the quality of congressional oversight of
the Defense Department.” The Arizona Republican discussed Congress’s re-
peated failure to enact a defense budget before the beginning of the fiscal year
and the counterproductive duplicative reviews by the budget, authorization,
and appropriations committees. “As we direct that changes be introduced into
DoD to improve overall national security, we must make changes ourselves,”
he concluded. “I am casting the first stone and I am throwing it at our glass
house here in the Congress.”
Nunn’s speech followed the same line: “We have found the enemy and it is
us.” He argued that the budgetary process “has led to the trivialization of Con-
gress’ responsibilities for oversight and . . . to excessive micromanagement.”
Nunn spoke of Capitol Hill’s preoccupation with trivia: “Last year, Congress
changed the number of smoke grenade launchers and muzzle boresights the
Army requested. We directed the Navy to pare back its request for parachute
flares, practice bombs, and passenger vehicles. Congress specified that the Air
Force should cut its request for garbage trucks, street cleaners, and scoop load-
ers. This is a bit ridiculous. The current congressional review of the defense
program would make a fitting version of the popular game, ‘Trivial Pursuit.’”8
Being a strong believer in the use of history to understand current prob-
lems, Goldwater was enthusiastic about the second speeches’ examination of

past wars and crises. He said that he and Nunn would “discuss specific examples
where the military services’ inability, or unwillingness, to work together has
led this nation to military disaster or near disaster.” In another often-quoted
line, he said, “As someone who has devoted his entire life to the military, I am
saddened that the services are still unable to put national interest above paro-
chial interest.” Goldwater identified two problems: lack of true unity of com-
mand and inadequate cooperation among the services. On unity of command’s
importance to any operation, he said: “Every West Point plebe knows that. It
means that there’s only one commander. It means there is only one chief and
he’s over all the Indians—no matter what tribe.” Goldwater spoke to the orga-
nizational problems evidenced by Pearl Harbor, Leyte Gulf, the Vietnam War,
and the Pueblo seizure.9
Nunn’s speech recounted the Iranian hostage rescue mission and the
Grenada invasion. However, he began by talking about the unity of command
problems in Vietnam, which he said “were never thoroughly discussed and
never thoroughly understood by the media, the general public, or Congress.”
The Georgia Democrat also remarked that the Pueblo crisis “was never exam-
ined, at least in the public dialogue, from the point of view of what really went
wrong.” After reciting problems during the Desert One operation, ranging from
the incompatibility of equipment to poorly coordinated joint training, he gave
a detailed analysis of Grenada. “Grenada has been touted as a victory . . . But it
is sobering to look at how many failures of coordination and communication
there were. One cannot help but wonder what would have happened if the op-
position on the island had been better armed, organized, or larger.”10
The following day, Goldwater and Nunn addressed the deficiencies in the
JCS and unified commands. “The shortcomings are not in the men, the short-
comings are in the office,” Goldwater explained. “They are called on to do an
almost impossible task: to represent their own service’s viewpoint but, simulta-
neously, to sacrifice that view to the greater common good of joint consider-
ations.” On the liabilities of such arrangements, the chairman quoted Winston
Churchill: “I am increasingly impressed with the disadvantages of the present
system of having Naval, Army and Air Force officers equally represented at all
points and on all combined subjects, whether in committees or in commands.
This has resulted in a paralysis of the offensive spirit.”11
Goldwater then listed the problems in the joint system: “The inability of
the JCS to provide useful and timely military advice; the poor performance in
joint operations; the inadequate quality of the staff of the Organization of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff; the confused command lines; and the lack of adequate
advocates for joint interests in budgetary matters.” He also spoke of the domi-
nance of the services in the joint system: “When the rope from the individual
services pulls in one direction and the rope from the Joint Chiefs pulls in the
other direction, the individual services invariably win that tug-of-war. . . . but
the country loses.”
Goldwater concluded by saying: “You will hear over and over again the old
maxim: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Well, I say to my colleagues: It is broke,
and we need to fix it.”
Nunn began his speech by talking about JCS paralysis. To show how the
JCS could not even easily resolve a minor personnel issue, he recounted an
anecdote from General Jones describing how “the chiefs spent an entire after-
noon arguing over which service should provide the new attaché at our em-
bassy in Cairo.”12
Turning to the unified commands, Nunn said, “I regret to report to you
today that we have unified commanders but divided commands.” He spoke at
length about the lack of joint planning and coordination. One example that he
used revealed a dangerous disconnect between the army and air force: “We
learned that the Air Force was planning to evacuate a particular hospital in
Europe in the event of war because it believed that the hospital would be de-
stroyed almost immediately. At the same time, the Army was planning to move
in and use the same hospital after the Air Force left. Now, who is in charge over
there anyway? There is no excuse for this type of situation.”
The fourth set of speeches addressed the absence of a focus on military
missions in Pentagon planning and budgeting. Goldwater quoted Truman as
saying in December, : “With the coming of peace, it is clear that we must
not only continue, but strengthen, our present facilities for integrated plan-
ning. We cannot have the sea, land, and air members of our defense team work-
ing at what may turn out to be cross-purposes, planning their programs on
different assumptions as to the nature of the military establishment we need,
and engaging for an open competition for funds.” Goldwater said he agreed
with Truman, adding that “in , we needed a military establishment that
could conduct integrated planning and resource allocation and, I am sorry to
say, we still need it. Moreover, all of the things that President Truman said we
do not need, we still have.”13
Goldwater then offered the following analogy: “The absence of mission in-
tegration is like an orchestra that cannot play together. . . . The Department of
Defense is like an orchestra with  sections [the number of officials reporting
to the defense secretary], and many of them are the best in the business. But,
because they’re not integrated, they sound like Alexander’s Ragtime Band, not
the New York Philharmonic.” When my boss finished that sentence, he paused
and leaned over to me, seated next to him, and said, “I like ragtime music.”
From his tone, I sensed that he perceived that our analogy demeaned ragtime.
Nunn’s speech criticized OSD, which he argued “has primary responsibil-
ity for ensuring that we have an integrated defense program and that the United
States is capable of performing its major military missions in the most effective
and efficient manner.” He judged that “they have failed to do this.” Instead of
concentrating on outputs, Nunn said OSD was focusing on inputs. “A number
of people have responsibility for thousands upon thousands of individual inputs,
but no one has responsibility for the single output.”14
The fifth set of speeches addressed the Pentagon’s budget process, which
Goldwater said dominated activity: “The Department of Defense is preoccu-
pied with chasing after resources. More time is spent preparing plans for the
next budget than for the next war.” In making his point, Goldwater quoted
General MacArthur as saying, “There is no substitute for victory.” Goldwater
then lectured, “I say to the Pentagon, budget policy is no substitute for defense
policy.”15
Nunn addressed two consequences of flawed Pentagon budgeting. First,
by always forecasting unrealistically high future budgets, it permitted programs
to be started with limited funding in the budget year and the promise of more
funding in the out years. “We have so many systems in production at ineffi-
cient rates because we start more programs than we can afford,” Nunn argued.
He also lamented the system’s bias toward investment spending on hardware,
research and development, and construction over readiness spending for mu-
nitions, spare parts, and similar items. “This is why we spent $. billion on
attack submarines last year but didn’t buy enough torpedoes to give each of
them a full load. This is why we have $ million aircraft like the F- dropping
World War II–era dumb bombs, because we cannot afford to buy sufficient quan-
tities of modern munitions.”16
The final set of speeches summarized the previous five and pointed the
way ahead. Nunn spoke first, permitting the chairman to deliver the grand
finale. “If we change these organizational weaknesses,” said Nunn, “we will
strengthen our military. That is what this effort is all about.”17
Then it was Goldwater’s turn: “I do believe that this is a terribly important
subject. The reorganization of the Department of Defense may be the most
important thing that Congress does in my lifetime. It will be the most impor-
tant thing that I tried to do in mine.” He urged “the Pentagon to work with us
in a spirit of cooperation, not confrontation. We need their input and counsel.
. . . If we are to fight a war, whether one starts tomorrow, ten years from now or
fifty years in the future, we must have the organizations in place to defend this
country. We owe this to the men and women in uniform who are the finest our
country has ever produced. . . . They deserve a better system than we have now.
. . . Congress must, and I am confident will, make the needed changes.”18
Elated with his final statement, Goldwater said, “Damn, that was a good
speech. Oh, I loved it.”19
I agreed with him about the speech, but near the end, when Goldwater
spoke about civilian control of the military, he ad-libbed the phrase “a prin-
ciple of questionable constitutionality.” I was stunned. Goldwater had often

criticized civilian meddling in military operations. In , at the first hearing
of Tower’s reorganization inquiry, he had said: “We have lost the last two wars
we have fought because they have been run by civilians in Washington. . . .
Now, I realize the sanctity of the idea of the civilian being supreme. It is a beau-
tiful thing to think about. The question in my mind is, can we any longer afford
to allow the expertise of men and women trained, at terrific expense, in what I
consider to be the finest military academies in the world, to be set aside for the
decisions of civilians.”20
Goldwater’s reorganization work had better informed him of all causes of
the military’s past failures. Although civilian meddling still troubled him, I had
never before heard him question the constitutionality of the principle that had
guided American civil-military relations since the creation of the republic. Did
he earnestly hold that view, or was this a popular phrase from old stump
speeches that just popped out? I had to find out. The reorganization effort could
get sidetracked on a highly unproductive debate over Goldwater’s comment.
After congratulating the chairman, I said, “There was one problem.”
“What’s that?” Goldwater asked, somewhat taken back.
“You called civilian control a principle of questionable constitutionality,” I
answered.
“I did?” he replied. Then, without further explanation, he said: “Sam and I
must get back to the committee hearing. Jim, you know what to do.”
Finn and I went to the Senate office of the Official Reporters of Debates, which
is responsible for transcribing Senate floor statements and debates for the Con-
gressional Record. There, as part of our normal duty to edit and correct transcrip-
tion errors in Goldwater’s floor statements, we struck the offending phrase.
Just as Goldwater and Nunn had hoped, their set of six speeches grabbed
the media’s attention. The print media reported extensively on them. The As-
sociated Press and United Press International filed the first stories under head-
lines reading “Goldwater: Problems in Congress hinder military superiority,”
“Interservice Rivalries Still Plaguing Planners, Senators Say,” and “Goldwater:
Service loyalty hampers joint chiefs.”21 Soon, articles on the speeches appeared
in all major newspapers and news magazines. The New York Times reported
that the speeches “portrayed the military as a confusion of competing factions,
quarreling over money in peacetime and tripping over one another in battle.”
Time related that when the senators gave their “sharply worded” speeches,
“shock waves rippled clear across the Potomac to the innermost rings of the
Pentagon.” It summarized the speeches by reporting that “the two senators
accused the military of endangering the nation’s defense and squandering its
assets with interservice bickering.”22
The speeches had set the stage; the media and public were now anxiously
awaiting release of the staff study.
Goldwater and Nunn initially intended to publish the study as a committee

report, which would require a committee vote. They were highly uncertain that
they could secure enough favorable votes. Moreover, opponents were likely to
insist on debating every paragraph of the -page report—congressional
trench warfare at its worst. To avoid these obstacles, Goldwater and Nunn de-
cided to print the study as a staff report to the committee. Such an action re-
quired only the chairman’s approval.
Releasing the study as a staff report had other important advantages. First,
its ideas could form the starting point for deliberations without being explicitly
endorsed by Goldwater and Nunn. This would greatly increase their flexibility
in the politicking and negotiating that would be required to enact meaningful
legislation.
A second advantage was greater freedom to use extreme recommendations
as part of a negotiating strategy. In seven years on Capitol Hill I had repeatedly
witnessed the central role of compromise in congressional politics. If our re-
port recommended exactly what we thought was needed to fix those problems,
the recommendations would become the starting point for prolonged negotia-
tions and weakening compromises. We thus would likely end up with half a
loaf: an incomplete and possibly unworkable set of reforms.
Nunn, also thinking about the need to include some extreme recommen-
dations for posturing purposes, told Finn, Smith, and me, “We need staff rec-
ommendations that scare them so badly that when we do what we really in-
tend to do, they will take out their handkerchiefs and wipe their brows and say,
‘Boy, we sure are lucky.’”23 Nunn envisioned some recommendations being more
far-reaching than we truly believed appropriate so that he and Goldwater could
use them as negotiating bait. With Goldwater’s concurrence, Nunn asked me
to go as far as I could in the report’s recommendations and “still retain some
plausibility.” Because our posturing would do little good if others understood
our strategy, only the two senators, Finn, Smith, Punaro, and I were privy to
this scheme.
“When Jim Locher agreed with that tactic, he, in effect, became the point
man,” Nunn said. “He was willing to be the guy out front catching all the
bullets. I thought it was a brave act on his part. It was intentional. It was our
strategy.”
Nunn recalled that he “was absolutely convinced that we had to put some-
thing out there stronger than we really wanted because if we didn’t let the
opponents knock down something, their blood thirst was never going to be
satisfied.”24
These few lightning-rod recommendations were the only changes we made
to the staff study. We wanted the analyses of problems and evaluation of solu-
tions to be as objective as possible.
As Finn, Smith, Punaro, and I began the process of selecting the right
package of recommendations, we had Confederate general Thomas J. “Stone-
wall” Jackson’s advice in mind: “Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the en-
emy.”25 We needed overly forceful proposals that were both believable in the
minds of antireformers and defensible by us until the moment for compro-
mise. I feared that our opponents would not be misled but would see through
our maneuver. If that occurred, we would have climbed out on a limb with
our extreme recommendations and achieved nothing. Fortunately, my fear
never materialized.
The staff report contained seventy-nine specific recommendations for
reforming the Pentagon. I used only seven for posturing, but some of those
addressed highly visible and contentious issues. The most extreme recom-
mendations called for disestablishing the JCS and replacing it with a joint
military advisory council (JMAC)—a group made up of military elder states-
men without any service responsibilities serving on their last tour of duty.
This concept was not new. General of the Army Omar Bradley, while serving
as JCS chairman, had recommended it in . Seven years later, Gen. Max-
well Taylor had pushed the idea. The Symington and Steadman reports in the
s and s had also examined this option in detail. In , Gen. Shy
Meyer supported this structure. These earlier recommendations made the
JMAC a believable option.
Although our desired outcome was to strengthen the JCS chairman along
the lines of General Jones’s proposals, recommending the JMAC provided the
maximum negotiating room. It also sent two powerful messages to the Penta-
gon: We judged JCS performance as highly unsatisfactory, and we were mak-
ing a serious effort to find meaningful solutions.
We knew that the recommendation to disestablish the JCS would be
a lightning rod. The service chiefs and their supporters seemed certain to fo-
cus their full energy and attention on defeating it. And that is exactly what
happened.
The first person outside of our six-man inner circle to decipher our pos-
turing strategy was Senator Cohen. The second was Pat Towell, a Congres-
sional Quarterly reporter. Cohen had decoded our scheme in early October.
Towell’s insights did not come until seven months later, well after we had
successfully executed the strategy. Towell used the term “bullet traps” to re-
fer to our overly forceful recommendations, especially the ones to disestab-
lish the JCS and create a JMAC. He selected an accurate term. The Pentagon
would expend a tremendous amount of ammunition trying to shoot down
these ideas.
Four of the other five bullet traps focused on the services. One would re-
duce the service staffs that work on joint matters to not more than twenty-
five officers. A second would increase the stature of the unified commanders
by making them more senior in rank than the service chiefs. A third would
remove the service component commanders in the unified commands from the
operational chain of command. The last service-oriented bullet trap would
merge the civilian secretariats and military headquarters staffs in the Army
and Air Force Departments and partially merge them in the Navy Department.
Even though I favored this idea, I had been unable to generate much support
for it. Also, it occupied a lower position on our list of reorganization priorities.
I added it to the list of bullet traps as great negotiating fodder.
The seventh bullet trap would establish three mission-oriented under sec-
retaries of defense for nuclear deterrence, NATO defense, and regional defense
and force projection. I had convinced some people of the need for an increased
mission-focus in the Pentagon, but I could not convince Secretaries Schlesinger
and Brown that these under secretaries were the answer. Without their sup-
port, I knew that Goldwater and Nunn would fight only so hard for this idea.
Because approval of this recommendation was unlikely, I added it to the list. It
also had the advantage of affecting seven lesser recommendations that were
tied to it. When it came time to bargain the proposal for mission-oriented un-
der secretaries away during negotiations, these lesser ones would follow and
give the appearance of more concessions.
Punaro asked if we wanted to recommend changing the title of the chief
of naval operations to chief of staff, U.S. Navy.26 There was a valid reason for
dropping the anachronistic title of CNO: it no longer reflected the position’s
duties. The CNO was no longer responsible for naval operations, a duty assigned
to the unified commanders. Nevertheless, knowing what a hornet’s nest chang-
ing the senior naval officer’s title would stir up, I told Punaro, “I may be foolish,
but I’m not suicidal.”
As part of finishing the staff study, I prepared a cover letter that acknowl-
edged those who had contributed to it. I called former committee staffer Mike
Donley, then on the National Security Council staff, and asked, “Do you want
me to acknowledge your contributions in my letter?”
“Reorganization is so controversial in the Pentagon that if you associate
me with the staff study, I’ll get the cold shoulder or worse,” Donley replied. “My
work on reorganization issues for the NSC staff will become much more diffi-
cult.” After giving him a hard time, I let him off the hook.
Goldwater and Nunn decided to hold a committee hearing on the staff re-
port to maximize the public impact of its release. In an unprecedented move,
they decided to have Finn, Smith, and me testify. The committee had not previ-
ously taken testimony from its staff during an open hearing. Majority Staff Di-
rector Jim McGovern was “adamantly opposed” to having staff testimony.27
Goldwater and Nunn dismissed his objections.
The senators planned to conduct the hearing in mid-October, but they had
to complete other critical actions before they could take the dramatic step of
releasing the study. Most important, they had to expand and solidify their base
of support on the Task Force on Defense Organization, whose members were
overly nervous and undereducated. Goldwater and Nunn needed to remedy
this situation if the task force were to fulfill their expectation of providing the
core support in the full committee. The two leaders had designed the second
part of their strategy to meet this need.
Gathering of Eagles 333
CHAPTER 17
Gathering of Eagles
Some people live in the present, oblivious of the past
and blind to the future. Some dwell in the past.
A very few have the knack of applying the past
to the present in ways that show them the future.
—Pres. Richard M. Nixon
A s the second part of their strategy to break out of the trenches, Senators
Goldwater and Nunn decided to take the unusual step of sequestering
the Task Force on Defense Organization at a distant army base in Virginia for
an entire weekend. The senators planned to invite fifteen outside experts to join
the gathering. This retreat would permit the task force to give its full attention
to reorganization for two days and hear directly from experienced practitioners
and distinguished scholars.
The task force’s two- to three-hour weekly meetings had proved inadequate
for comprehensive discussions. Not only were the issues numerous and com-
plex, but the absence of agreement on fundamental principles for organizing,
commanding, controlling, and administering the military had complicated their
examination. Experts had debated various principles throughout the twenti-
eth century but had reached lasting consensus on few. The competing demands
of other Senate work had distracted members and prevented them from devot-
ing more time to reorganization. Nunn had repeatedly expressed his frustra-
tion at these limitations. He often spoke of the need to get the task force out of
Washington for several days.
“I was afraid that Barry and I were getting out in front of our own troops
too much,” Nunn recalled. He said we needed to “find a way to get other mem-
bers involved in depth” so they would “be able to stick with it when the going
got tough.”1
Nunn sensed that the task force would benefit from increased discussions
with former senior defense civilians and retired officers. The staff’s analysis
had impressed many members, but vocal opposition by the Pentagon’s big
guns and retired generals and admirals caused members to remain noncom-
mittal. Hearing from those who had held top positions but were no longer
constrained by Pentagon politics, Nunn thought, might both educate and re-
assure members.
Although the retreat would focus on the task force, Nunn believed that all
Senate Armed Services Committee members should be invited. Eventually, the
entire committee would have to be educated on reorganization. An early start
with any who could attend would be useful. Goldwater endorsed Nunn’s ideas,
and the weekend retreat became part of their strategy.
Goldwater and Nunn scheduled the retreat for the first weekend in Octo-
ber at Fort A. P. Hill, an army base south of Fredericksburg, about seventy miles
from Washington. A small, rustic lodge and six or seven austere cabins in a
secluded part of the sixty-thousand-acre base would serve as the retreat’s set-
ting. I was familiar with these facilities. When Senator Tower was chairman,
he had used them several times for staff retreats in January to examine major
issues and plan the committee’s work. This familiarity factored into the selec-
tion of Fort A. P. Hill. A second factor was our desire to have the army handle
the retreat, which meant that we would have to use an army base. At the colo-
nel level and below, the army had shown more support for reorganization than
any other service. In our view, asking the navy to handle the retreat would
have been sailing in harm’s way. We amused ourselves imagining the awful
places the navy might choose.
Given the divisions in the task force, deciding on the size and composition
of the group of outside experts was a difficult, tedious undertaking. The mem-
bers deliberated at length over whom to invite to ensure representation of all
perspectives. They sought to balance numerous considerations: proreform vs.
antireform, Republican vs. Democrat, civilian vs. military, Office of the Secre-
tary of Defense vs. the military departments, and, among the four services,
headquarters vs. field commands, and joint vs. service. The unavailability of
certain invitees would reopen the bidding and further lengthen the process.
The lists of invitees and substitutes and sets of alternatives became so complex
that someone jested that I should ask one of the national laboratories for com-
puter assistance.
Fifteen experts accepted invitations to the retreat, including former Defense
Secretaries Jim Schlesinger and Harold Brown and two former JCS chairmen,
Adm. Tom Moorer and Gen. David Jones. The list of experts read like a Who’s
Who in American Defense. Goldwater called it “the most prestigious and knowl-
edgeable group of experts in this area that has been assembled.”2 The group
included two members of the Packard Commission: former senator Nicholas F.
Brady and Gen. Paul Gorman, former commander in chief of the Southern
Command (SOUTHCOM). In , the New Jersey governor appointed Brady
to fill the unexpired term of Sen. Harrison Williams, and Brady served on the
SASC during this eight-month period. Gorman had earned the reputation of
being one of the army’s most brilliant leaders. Many considered him the father
of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Gorman had served
as Jones’s special assistant when Jones launched his call for reform.
In addition to Moorer, Jones, and Gorman, two other retired officers were
invited: Lt. Gen. Mick Trainor and Vice Adm. Thor Hanson. The cerebral, ar-
ticulate Trainor had just retired after last serving as deputy chief of staff for
plans, policies, and operations at Marine Corps Headquarters. He would soon
begin to cover military affairs for the New York Times. Hanson, an old colleague
of mine from the OSD systems analysis shop, was the president of the Na-
tional Multiple Sclerosis Society. In his last two assignments before retiring in
 he had been posted as Brown’s military assistant and Jones’s Joint Staff
director.
Harvard’s Samuel P. Huntington and Texas A&M’s Frank E. Vandiver rep-
resented the academic community. Huntington, a Harvard professor since ,
ranked as the leading American scholar on civil-military relations. During the
retreat, Huntington compared notes on reorganization with a former student:
Sen. Ted Kennedy.3 Vandiver, president of Texas A&M, was renowned as a mili-
tary historian. Senator Gramm had pushed hard for Vandiver’s participation.
The other five outside experts had garnered experience in Pentagon civil-
ian posts. Robert J. Murray had served as a navy under secretary during the
Carter administration. Bill Brehm, head of the Chairman’s Special Study Group,
had worked as an assistant secretary in the army and OSD. Lawyer John Kester,
a prolific author on defense organization, had served as Brown’s special assis-
tant. RAND president Donald B. Rice, a deputy assistant secretary of defense
in OSD systems analysis in the late s, had also served as an assistant direc-
tor at the Office of Management and Budget. Phil Odeen, chairman of the CSIS
Defense Organization Project, had served as a deputy assistant secretary of
defense with Rice and later worked for Henry Kissinger on the NSC staff.
Six experts were known to be strongly proreform: Schlesinger, Brown, Jones,
Brehm, Kester, and Odeen. Three were expected to advocate antireform posi-
tions: Moorer, Murray, and Trainor. Some others—Gorman, Hanson, Rice, and
Huntington—had commented favorably on some reform issues, but their
broader views were unknown. Goldwater and Nunn wanted the meeting to tilt
toward reorganization, but they also wanted opposing views aired.
All nine task force members agreed to participate. J. James Exon (D-Ne-
braska) accepted Goldwater’s and Nunn’s invitation to other SASC members.
Finn, Smith, and I would attend with four other committee staffers: Jim
McGovern, Arnold Punaro, Alan Yuspeh, and John Hamre. Eight military leg-
islative assistants from the personal staffs of task force members would par-
ticipate, as well as Frank Sullivan, who worked for Sen. John Stennis on the
Appropriations Committee. In all, forty-one people would participate, plus a
handful of army escorts.
At  A.M. on Saturday, October , all participants gathered at the Pentagon he-

liport. In an incredible site, the army had assembled eight UH- Blackhawk
helicopters to transport the group to Fort A. P. Hill. The Blackhawk was the
army’s newest helicopter, and the brass was not about to miss this golden op-
portunity for show-and-tell.
Goldwater and I rode in the last Blackhawk. General Jones was also a pas-
senger. As we were about to lift off the ground, Goldwater announced, “I’m
going to fly this thing.” He was famous for having flown almost every aircraft
in the military inventory. The chairman’s arthritis in his hips and knees limited
his mobility, so getting him into the cockpit took some work. With the
helicopter’s crew doing a lot of pushing and shoving, Goldwater at last climbed
into the copilot’s seat and we took off. When Jones saw Goldwater in the cock-
pit, he moved quickly to the seat beside me and asked, “He’s not going to fly, is
he?” I nodded. Jones immediately looked out the door, but we were too high for
him to jump.
This was a no-nonsense retreat. As soon as we stowed our gear, the work
began. We met in the lodge’s main room. The tables had been arranged in a
large rectangle. The senators and outside experts sat along the outer side of the
tables, and staffers occupied chairs behind them. Finn, Smith, and I had ar-
ranged the seating to intersperse experts and senators. Although we had to
follow protocol, we had some flexibility to determine who sat next to whom.
Knowing the senators and experts, we made a determination as to which ex-
pert might have the greatest influence with each member.
The weekend would be devoted to debating the completed staff study—a
copy of which had been provided to each participant three days in advance. To
promote candid discussions, Goldwater and Nunn had decided that all com-
ments would be off the record. I started the discussion of each chapter by high-
lighting its findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
Most of the discussion focused on the study’s analyses of organizational
problems and their causes. The majority of the experts complimented these
analyses and offered supporting evidence from personal experiences. Professor
Sam Huntington graded the staff report as an outstanding dissertation for a
Harvard doctoral candidate.
But the outside experts did not agree with the study’s title: Crisis in Defense
Organization. I had selected this title to communicate the situation’s serious-
ness and the urgency for corrective action. Although many experts agreed with
the need for major reforms, they thought that the title would come across, par-
ticularly in the Pentagon, as too strident. After the group discussed several al-
ternatives, I proposed Defense Organization: The Need for Change. Nearly all
participants thought this title was about right.
As the Saturday afternoon session began, Lt. Col. James Rooney, the head
army escort, made an announcement. As was standard procedure for a gath-
ering of such prominent officials, the army was providing physical security
around the lodge and cabins. “I would like everyone to stay close to the lodge
until further notice,” Rooney said. “Two men wearing ski masks have been
spotted in the woods by security personnel.” Rooney paused, and then added,
“It’s probably Secretary Weinberger and Secretary Lehman.” His quip got a big
laugh—but not from everyone.
General Gorman’s commentary about the unified commands significantly
influenced the discussions. Having ending his tour as SOUTHCOM commander
only seven months earlier, he could speak authoritatively on problems in the
field. A  West Point graduate, Gorman served his initial tour as an infantry
second lieutenant in the Korean War. He earned more combat medals in Viet-
nam, where he gained a reputation as a “tough commander who pushed his
troops hard.” Once, from his unit’s position, Gorman “directed an air strike of
napalm bombs that landed so close they burned the map he was holding and
singed his forehead.”4
Gorman took over SOUTHCOM, headquartered in Panama, in May, .
He turned the once-sleepy outpost into one of the most important players in
planning and executing the Reagan administration’s Latin American policy.
The army general was politically well connected in Washington. As special as-
sistant to JCS Chairmen Jones and Vessey, he worked closely with the NSC and
State Department. Earlier, Gorman had been assigned to the Central Intelli-
gence Agency for a year. Gorman’s major role in writing some of the docu-
ments included in the Pentagon Papers, a documentary history of the U.S.
Government’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict, had sharpened his under-
standing of Latin American insurgencies and how to counter them.
Gorman had also studied the Pentagon’s organizational problems. He had
assisted Jones’s reorganization work in  and , served on the organiza-
tion panel at the  West Point conference, and testified on the subject to the
SASC in . In February, , Gorman had answered the organization ques-
tions posed to commanders of the unified commands in the  defense au-
thorization bill. In July, President Reagan had appointed him to the Packard
Commission.
Gorman’s combined knowledge of the current state of the unified com-
mands and defense organization enabled him to offer powerful insights. He pro-
vided vivid anecdotes and compelling evidence of how the services’ power and
independence had crippled his efforts to assist regional nations in their fights
against insurgents, drug traffickers, and terrorists.
Gorman later recalled telling the conference participants of “some of the
difficulties a CINC had with this curious notion of component commands and
the prerogatives of the services.” He began by explaining that he “was the only
general officer assigned to SOUTHCOM headquarters. My next ranking assigned
officer was a colonel.” Gorman had argued for more senior officers to help him
with his demanding missions, but “the chiefs couldn’t muster the resolve or
fortitude to redress this wrong.”5
The retired four-star general also related, “My deputy CINC and air com-
ponent commander, an air force major general, died on the job of cancer. The
air force did not consider his job important, so they left him there. I was run-
ning several wars and was daily under the gun with the secretaries of state and
defense, and I needed a hell of a lot more help than I got out of my air compo-
nent commander. . . . I rarely saw him. He was not on the job. I didn’t have a
deputy.”
Gorman revealed that his control of assigned forces was limited: “The army
brigade in Panama was a Forces Command unit, and it received all of its re-
sources from the Forces Command. As a result, I found myself under a series of
dictates from the Forces Command commander dealing with operational tempo
issues, like flying hours for army aviation.” Gorman’s ability to employ his force
was constrained by a U.S.-based command having budgetary—but no opera-
tional—responsibility. His low priority for resources had also relegated Gorman
to flying in an army propeller-driven C- aircraft. While modern transport
jets flew other four-star officers, Gorman spent thirty-one days each year in the
air flying long distances in his slow aircraft.
Service personnel policies undermined SOUTHCOM’s ability to create
interservice teams. “I discovered to my horror that all services had their own
separate policies on how long SOUTHCOM temporary duty assignments should
persist,” Gorman said. “The army would say  days, the air force would say
sixty days, and the navy would have a ninety-day policy. Every time I got a
team together, they would disappear and be destroyed by these personnel poli-
cies over which the CINC had no control.
“We were at war in SOUTHCOM,” Gorman told the retreat participants.
“We were undertaking a series of operations to foreclose larger conflict, and
we succeeded in that. But we did so despite the system, not because of it. I feel
very strongly that this is a hell of a way to run a war, and it badly needs to be
changed.”
During the retreat, I had to defend the staff report’s overly forceful recom-
mendations. As expected, antireformers zeroed in on the proposal to disestablish
the JCS. After one testy session on that recommendation, Senator Cohen, at-
tuned to our strategy, grabbed me firmly and told me to defend it as long as I
possibly could. In his view, the opposition had become fixated on that one pro-
posal. I managed to defend that recommendation for more than four months,
but it was not easy.
During meals, served family style at big tables, discussions about reorgani-
zation continued informally. Comments General Trainor made before dinner
on Saturday irritated Goldwater. Everyone was congratulating Goldwater on
his commitment to reorganization, saying how it would be his legacy to the
country, the marine recalled. “Goldwater was just so full of himself with all
this talk about his legacy, and I said, ‘I hope you’re not remembered for a legacy
of folly.’ Then I began about too much power in the hands of the chairman,
and Goldwater really got pissed off, and for the rest of the conference he never
acknowledged my existence.”6
Goldwater orchestrated the retreat brilliantly. His masterstroke came dur-
ing the discussion session after dinner on Saturday. Schlesinger and Brown were
scheduled to return to Washington that evening. As they were preparing to
depart, Goldwater asked them to summarize their thoughts on the day’s dis-
cussions.
Schlesinger possessed impressive speaking skills. His talks were not spell-
binding, but the logic of his arguments and the appeal of his words combined
to leave a lasting impression. He carefully avoided overstatement and punctu-
ated his talks with wit. “The organization of the Department of Defense is not
logical,” the former defense secretary began. “It reflects the compromises struck
in  which retained the power of the services. This creates a natural ten-
sion which you cannot resolve so long as the central compromise of  is
retained. . . . I am convinced you need to take an evolutionary approach. Things
cannot be solved instantaneously. Gradual change has promise. Radical change
does not.”7
On the JCS, the Republican former secretary advised: “Don’t ask people to
deal with questions that they themselves cannot answer. The service chiefs of
staff are unable to solve fundamental issues of roles and missions, budget shares,
and so forth. Don’t demand that they do what is beyond their abilities.”
Schlesinger said the staff study “focused on the right problems and pro-
poses useful, but, to some people, provocative solutions.”8 He recommended
that “any changes for the OSD should avoid prescribing a management style
for the secretary of defense.”9 Schlesinger said the present JCS structure “im-
pedes efficient functioning.” As to fixes, he advised, “I favor the modest evolu-
tionary changes suggested by Jones: strengthen the JCS chairman, give him a
deputy, give the Joint Staff to the chairman alone, improve the quality of the
Joint Staff, retain the presence of the service chiefs on the JCS but don’t give
them authority over the staff.”
The former secretary concluded: “These changes would improve the JCS,
would help make the JCS more useful and, therefore, remove some of the needs
for OSD interference, and would strengthen the unified commanders.” Schle-
singer had woven the day’s disparate comments into powerful arguments.
Brown followed with an equally brilliant statement. He started by focusing
on the imbalance in joint and service interests: “I believe that there is a con-
tinuing need for discrete military departments, but we have not achieved the
desirable level of jointness in the Department of Defense. The services continue
to be too strong.
“To correct the deficiencies that linger from the  compromise,” Brown
asserted, “the JCS should clearly be the focus of current reform efforts.” He
spoke on his ideal solution: “I prefer a combined military staff [general staff]
responsible to the JCS chairman. The chairman should have a deputy from the
other service pair [army–air force versus navy–Marine Corps].”
Weinberger’s predecessor continued: “There is substantial unanimity
among all retreat participants that we need to strengthen the hand of the unified
commanders. They need expanded control over staff resources and their com-
ponent commanders.”
After noting that he had served as a service secretary as well as defense
secretary, Brown advised, “ I agree that we should combine the staff of the ser-
vice chiefs and service secretaries. If they don’t work closely, they don’t work
well anyway.”
Sensing the momentum created by the two secretaries, Goldwater contin-
ued around the table and asked the other experts for their thoughts. General
Jones was seated beside Brown, so he spoke next and added to the momentum:
“The current system can’t handle the too-hard issues that lie ahead, like bud-
get shares, roles and missions, the Unified Command Plan, and others.”
Jones stressed the need of “getting better quality officers into the joint sys-
tem.” He cited statistics on inadequate experience: “Presently, only two per-
cent of Joint Staff officers have ever had joint experience before.” He summed
up the problem in attracting better officers: “Joint work isn’t interesting and
the assignment contributes little to their careers. We need to change this.”
Because Schlesinger had already outlined Jones’s fixes for the JCS, the
former JCS chairman emphasized only a few points, including his view that
the service chiefs “should have the right to appeal recommendations of the
chairman and Joint Staff. . . . The bulk of this should be done administratively
rather than legislatively. But it is imperative that we convince DoD that unless
we make these changes, congressional support of the defense program is threat-
ened. If we don’t make modest changes now, drastic changes will come later.”
I did not agree with Jones’s political advice. We were beyond just threatening
the Pentagon. Threats had not produced results. We were now engaged in a
win-or-lose fight over legislation.
Texas A&M President Vandiver spoke next: “I don’t think we should ignore
the potential of a general staff. It should be a general staff that includes all mili-
tary departments, not just the Army.” Senator Gramm, startled by Vandiver’s
raising of this navy bugaboo, glanced at the historian seated next to him with a
puzzled look that seemed to ask, “Who brought this person to the party?”
Odeen sought to counter the argument about improvements in the JCS
over the preceding four years. He noted that good funding, no wars, and no
critical issues had resulted in “an absence of friction.” He thought the future
would be different, and recent improvements would not substitute for organi-
zational changes.
The CSIS project chairman spoke of the consensus on “a valid need to shift
emphasis from inputs toward outputs and missions.” He lamented, “Unfortu-
nately, none of us has the answer how to do this.”
“We are confronted with a dilemma,” began Kester. “The opportunity for
reform comes only one time per generation. This is now the time, and it calls
for bold action. On the other hand, it isn’t possible to legislate organizational
details and outcomes. Consequently, we need to strike a balance in this dilemma,
and I think the proper focus should be on the JCS. That is the center of the most
persistent problems and flaws. That should be the focus of reform, and the key
to reform there is to strengthen the chairman.”
After this long string of proreform commentary, former Navy Under
Secretary Murray threw cold water on reform notions: “As a society, we orga-
nize our institutions to support democracy, not efficiency. There will always
be inefficiencies.” His comments targeted criticisms of the JCS and other in-
efficiencies.
“The most important thing we can do is to find ways to increase coopera-
tion and not competition among the services,” said Murray. He thought the
key was “to educate military officers on the strengths of their sister services,”
and added, “I am a fan of the military departments, and the service secretaries
and their organizations. It is too hard for OSD to get close to the management
issues that are unique to the individual services. The service secretaries are
much closer and can make an indispensable contribution.”
Admiral Hanson returned to proreform commentary, arguing “that the
primary need is to strengthen the JCS chairman.” He advocated a joint spe-
cialty for officers, a requirement that a unified commander must have served in
a joint assignment, and a requirement that the JCS chairman must have served
as a unified commander.
Professor Huntington recommended focusing “on what is currently miss-
ing in defense organization.” He explained: “Two things are missing. We are
missing an effective non-service military perspective—an alternative to the
perspective of the service chiefs on joint matters. Second, we are missing the
perspective that reflects missions rather than functions.”
Huntington also noted that “the dynamic of the U.S. Government is to dis-
perse power. The reform intended in  was dissipated because the intended
centralization of power was dispersed by the dynamic of the American politi-
cal system.
“The conclusion of these two points in combination,” Huntington said, “is
that if you err in one direction or the other, err in giving more power to the
secretary of defense, JCS chairman, and unified commanders because the dy-
namic of the system will always disperse power to the elements of separation
as opposed to the elements of jointness.”
Bill Brehm focused his comments on the relatively limited experience lev-
els in key Pentagon positions: assistant defense secretaries and Joint Staff officers
had served on the average only sixteen months, and general and flag officers in
the joint system, only twelve months. “Inexperienced people are running a $
billion company,” he concluded. “We have got to make changes.”
Don Rice supported the “modest evolutionary changes” already recom-
mended. “None of these changes would threaten civilian control,” he empha-
sized. “Indeed, they would strengthen civilian control.” He also said he thought
that Congress “needs to develop a careful legislative approach that is condu-
cive to change, but avoids going overboard.”
Admiral Moorer was the last expert to speak. As the retreat’s most un-
yielding reform opponent, he was agitated by much of what he had heard and
used emotion as a key element of his rebuttal. He asserted the need for preserv-
ing the service chiefs’ stature: “If you lower the prestige of the service chief,
you will create a negative effect on young officers. Young officers have to have a
father image to look up to and that has to be the service chief.”
The oldest living JCS chairman argued: “Leave the JCS as it is. I don’t ob-
ject to putting the staff under the chairman’s control, though we didn’t do that
in the past, and I don’t think it is required. . . . Don’t cut the service chiefs out of
the JCS. If a man can’t be both a service chief and a member of the JCS, then
fire him and get a man who can do both. Don’t isolate the service chiefs from
the president.
“It is critical that individuals in uniform have pride in their service,”
Moorer concluded. “Don’t do anything that undermines that pride.” His emo-
tional pleas clashed with the day’s serious, substantive debate and lessened
his credibility.
Having heard from the experts, Goldwater then asked the senators for their
thoughts. His request forced several members to summarize their views on re-
organization for the first time, and in front of their colleagues and, more im-
portantly, a distinguished panel of outsiders. Emboldened by the proreform
comments of many experts, undecided senators spoke favorably about some
reform proposals, especially strengthening the unified commanders. Even op-
ponents were less adamant.
Bingaman rated the discussion as “very useful” and was anxious for clarifi-
cation of “those things that can and should be done legislatively and those
things which should be done through exhortation.”
Caught up in the moment, Gramm said: “I am surprised at how much has
been said today with which I agree. I think there is consensus on the following
things: to strengthen the unified commanders, strengthen the JCS chairman,
bring the Joint Staff under the jurisdiction and control of the JCS chairman,
and make the Joint Staff more professional.” In the months that followed,
Gramm remained firm on strengthening the unified commanders, but he re-
gressed on other positions.
That night, the Texas senator also espoused some antireform views: “I think
the service secretaries are here to stay and should be strengthened. We should
give to the service secretaries all responsibilities for recruiting, training, sup-
plying, and procuring for their services, and we should do away with any re-
dundancy that exists on the OSD staff.”
“We want to preserve all the positive strengths of the services,” Levin
opined, “but we need more prominence for jointness than the current system
permits.”
Cohen offered the last views: “We are not in a crisis, but it is like a crisis.
When the Grenada operation is hailed as a success, but was [close to] the edge
of catastrophe, you know that we have to make changes. The key point is that
unless we make serious changes now it could well undermine support for de-
fense in the future. . . . It is naive to think that we can accomplish this without
legislation. Unless we have the threat of legislation, there will be no movement.
I agree with John Kester that we should be bold, but careful.”
As the session broke up, Goldwater and Nunn compared notes. They were
elated by the results. If they could have, they would have raked their chips off
the table, packed up the whole kit and caboodle, and headed back to Washing-
ton that night.
After the Saturday night session, the Sunday morning presentations and
discussions were anticlimactic. After lunch, we returned to the Pentagon by
helicopter.
From Goldwater’s and Nunn’s perspective, the retreat was an overwhelming

success. Goldwater told the participants that it was the best meeting he had
ever attended.10 The sessions had improved members’ understanding of the
issues, and they had heard directly from seasoned experts. To maximize the
benefit of the experts’ commentary, Goldwater and Nunn asked me to prepare
a nonattribution summary of the experts’ major areas of consensus to include
in the staff study.
“The meeting was a great success,” said Goldwater. “It was an extraordi-
narily productive session. Not all of the experts agreed on all points and, at
times, the discussion got rather heated. But there was a consensus that there
were serious problems that needed to be fixed and that the analysis in the study
was essentially correct.”11
The outcome also pleased many of the experts who participated. Hunting-
ton later called it “a very successful meeting. People were voicing questions
and objections, but it seemed to me a very positive tone.”12 Brehm recalled that
the “Fort A. P. Hill retreat was an astonishing experience, and in some sense a
watershed because a lot of the anecdotal stuff that does really make impres-
sions came out there. The give-and-take was good, and the senators made it
easy to talk. The openness of the dinner table discussion was remarkable. . . .
The turnout was extraordinary—testimony to the seriousness of the issues and
interest of the people.”13
Not everyone was pleased, however. General Trainor later complained, “The
meeting was loaded in favor of reorganization.” He said he thought Moorer’s
presence as the most senior opponent handicapped the antireformers because
“Moorer was not an articulate spokesman.” Nevertheless, admitted Trainor,
“It was a good conference, and I had the opportunity to make the points and
get across the dangers that I wanted to.”14
Admiral Moorer wrote a two-page summary of the retreat, which he pro-
vided to the navy. Because the session was off the record, he attempted to hide
the source by writing in third person, but a covering note to Admiral Watkins
said the summary came from Moorer. The former JCS chairman wrote that
Goldwater returned “to his lifelong campaign against the Navy’s separate air
arm, saying that we have four air forces, and we need only one. Dave Jones
picked this up and said we had five air forces in Vietnam . . . and because the Air
Force did not have control of all of them, it was all wrong.”15
Moorer criticized my proposals to increase the Pentagon’s focus on mis-
sions: “Locher—former McNamara systems analyst—would . . . organize DoD
along mission lines. Their idea—(i.e., the idea of the Enthoven [former assis-
tant secretary of defense for systems analysis] group still around, such as Locher,
Phil Odeen, who was present, and Les Aspin)—is that the end game of DoD
should be to concentrate on the missions.” The admiral exulted, “The mission
element approach—i.e., the PA&E [program analysis and evaluation, the new
name for the systems analysis office] structure—was shot down.” Moorer would
have been apoplectic if he had known that three other attendees—Rice, Brehm,
and Hanson—were also systems analysis alumni.
Although the admiral reported that “Locher kept referring to the crisis in
the military,” he said that there was no crisis—that we had been operating in
the same way since the National Security Act was first passed in . His
notes ended with a quotation from a statement he made at the retreat: “The
National Security Act of  was purposely ambiguous, we didn’t want it to
be rigid.”
Despite the adverse commentary, the retreat had gone as well as Goldwater
and Nunn could have hoped. Bingaman, Levin, and Kennedy had voiced
proreform views and were now solid backers of Goldwater and Nunn’s cam-
paign. This gave the senators six proreformers on the nine-member task force.
The hope of a transformation by Gramm was short-lived. Someplace between
Fort A. P. Hill and Washington he lost his proreform zeal. Nevertheless, during
the retreat, he and Sen. Pete Wilson had become believers in the need to
strengthen the unified commanders.
Goldwater later identified the retreat at Fort A. P. Hill as the pivotal moment
during which the pendulum began to swing in the right direction.16 He and
Nunn still viewed themselves as underdogs, but they had busted out of the
trenches and now had real hope for their campaign. Although the Fort A. P. Hill
retreat ranked as a critical skirmish, several monumental clashes loomed ahead.
CHAPTER 18
Expedition into
Hostile Territory
We must free ourselves of emotional attachments to
service systems of an era that is no more.
—Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958
P ublic release of the staff study would be the next major step in the cam-
paign of Senators Goldwater and Nunn. Before taking that step, however,
they felt the need to arrange a courtesy briefing for Defense Secretary
Weinberger. They did not want to give him further reason—such as hearing
secondhand about the study—to oppose reorganization. Although briefing the
study to the secretary and other senior defense officials might provide insights
on their thinking, no one looked forward to going to the Pentagon for a show-
down with reform’s most determined adversaries.
The Fort A. P. Hill retreat convinced Goldwater and Nunn that the staff
study could be a powerful instrument for change. Most outside experts had
praised the report’s quality and thoroughness. High marks from Secretaries
Schlesinger and Brown had particularly impressed the two senators. The
report’s ideas had held up well under rigorous questioning. Even the so-called
extreme recommendations had weathered the debate. Few supported them,
but the retreat participants had accepted them as viable alternatives.
Goldwater and Nunn were determined to convene the committee hearing
to release the study as soon as possible. The urgency reflected their fear that
the report’s message would leak out in the press and be poorly or inaccurately
presented. In the contentious atmosphere of the reform debate, leaks were a
distinct possibility. Each retreat participant had been given a copy of the report
Expedition into Hostile Territory 347
and Goldwater and Nunn had asked the recipients not to reveal the contents.
Nevertheless, they understood that confidentiality was not Washington’s strong
suit. They were especially worried that opponents would try to neutralize the
report by planting negative stories.
Setting the hearing date had to await printing of the study by the Govern-
ment Printing Office. Goldwater and Nunn also had other critical tasks to ac-
complish before they could release the report. Besides Weinberger, they needed
to arrange courtesy briefings for three other audiences: the House Armed Ser-
vices Committee, the Packard Commission, and Bud McFarlane and his Na-
tional Security Council staff. Goldwater and Nunn were working well with these
three organizations. They did not want their allies to be caught cold by public
discussion of the report.
Goldwater and Nunn decided to attend the briefings to Weinberger and
the Packard Commission and instructed me to handle the other two. The sena-
tors selected the crucial briefings to attend. The other two proved uneventful.
My House staff counterparts—Arch Barrett and John Lally from the HASC
and Tommy Glakas from Representative Skelton’s office—took the first briefing
on behalf of their members on the morning of Monday, October . Although
the breadth and depth of the report’s analysis impressed them, Barrett said,
“We remain convinced that a massive and controversial reorganization—with
several hundred major changes in law—is far too much for our committees to
handle at one time. Our best chance of success is to take one component at a
time. The House will continue its bite-size approach.” Other than this major
process issue, Barrett, Lally, and Glakas agreed with the problems identified in
our briefing and acquiesced in many of the proposed solutions.
The NSC courtesy briefing was equally trouble free. McFarlane assigned his
deputy, Vice Admiral Poindexter, and Mike Donley to hear my presentation. The
session was held on Wednesday afternoon, October , in the White House Situa-
tion Room. Although I knew Poindexter from service together in the Pentagon, I
was not aware of his position on reform. For months, I had heard rumors that
the navy was leaning on him to help derail reorganization, but during my pre-
sentation, the admiral did not make any waves. In fact, he struck a positive tone,
listened carefully, and asked insightful questions. Afterward, I reported to
Goldwater and Nunn, “The NSC staff remains supportive.”
Sandwiched between these briefings were sessions with the Packard Com-
mission and Weinberger. Both were conducted on Tuesday, October . In the
morning, Goldwater, Nunn, Rick Finn, Jeff Smith, Gerry Smith, and I went to
the commission’s offices near the White House. The attendance at the Fort A. P.
Hill retreat of two commissioners—Sen. Nick Brady and Gen. Paul Gorman—
paid dividends. They helped to break down attitude and communication barri-
ers. Their prior involvement with our report seemed to make other commis-
sioners more open to our ideas. Brady and Gorman usefully commented on my
briefing and helped translate the report’s concepts into ones more familiar to
the commission.
I had incorporated a number of editorial changes in my briefing as sug-
gested during the Fort A. P. Hill retreat, including many from Gorman. These
changes removed some sharp elbows from my presentation. This proved to be
valuable for the session with the commission, which, having just begun its own
reorganization work, was not ready to accept strong language.
As I briefed the commission, Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who had been Presi-
dent Ford’s national security adviser, encouraged me. Scowcroft’s animated
facial expressions showed agreement with the briefing’s key points. Every few
minutes he also gave me an energetic thumb’s up or an okay sign.
My message did not please everyone, however. Antireform commission-
ers, especially the forner marine commandant, Gen. Bob Barrow, posed sharp
questions, but David Packard and other reform supporters appeared to hold
the upper hand.
That afternoon, Goldwater, Nunn, Finn, Jeff Smith, and I traveled to the
Pentagon to brief Weinberger and his senior colleagues. Our reform crusade
personally offended the secretary. Despite the long history of structural defi-
ciencies, he viewed our effort as a direct, unwarranted attack on his tenure.
Weinberger was particularly unhappy with me. He viewed me as the principal
transgressor. I anticipated a long and grueling afternoon.
En route to the Pentagon, Goldwater and Nunn unexpectedly began to
laugh as they visualized the coming showdown. Their lighthearted approach
did not match their normally serious nature. They found my plight as the point
man for our expedition into hostile territory particularly amusing. “Jim,”
Goldwater laughed as he addressed me, “Sam and I are going to give you one
hell of an introduction. Then, by God, we’re going to get out of the line of fire.”
With a soft chuckle, he added, “Whatever happens, don’t take it easy on them.”
“I bet Cap Weinberger just can’t wait for your briefing to start,” Nunn
chimed in. He probably has had a team of a hundred of his brightest colonels
preparing killer questions for you.” Nunn even had me laughing when he joked,
“By the time you’re done, you’re going to look like Johnny Carson doing his
imitation of General Custer with forty-seven arrows in his back.”
When our car halted at the Pentagon’s River Entrance, the laughter
abruptly ended.
The five of us stepped out of the car and began climbing the steps into the
massive building. The offices of the defense secretary are located in one of the
Pentagon’s museum-like halls: the Dwight David Eisenhower Commemorative
Corridor. Memorabilia of the former president’s military career—from West
Point cadet to five-star general—are displayed there. As Goldwater, Nunn, my
fellow staffers, and I were escorted to Weinberger’s conference room, we walked
through this corridor and passed by two Eisenhower portraits. One depicted
him as president. In the other, he was wearing an Eisenhower jacket with five
stars on each epaulet.
The portraits reminded me of Eisenhower’s incomplete defense reorgani-
zation campaigns. Throughout his two White House terms, he pressed for im-
proved coordination and cooperation in the Pentagon. Eisenhower had seen
bitter interservice rivalry up close during his twenty-seven-month tour as army
chief staff beginning in November, . Later, while serving as a part-time
military consultant to Defense Secretary James Forrestal, he watched even more
vicious service infighting—especially between the navy and air force.
In January, , Truman asked Eisenhower to preside over JCS meetings
as an informal chairman. Even though Eisenhower was then serving as presi-
dent of Columbia University, as a five-star general, he was on active duty for
life, and thus available for part-time assignments from the president. Despite
Eisenhower’s best efforts, he was unable to curtail the bickering among the ser-
vice chiefs. He noted in his diary in March, : “The situation grows intoler-
able. I am so weary of this interservice struggle for position, prestige and power
that this morning I practically ‘blew my top.’” In October, he wrote: “The whole
performance is humiliating—I’ve seriously considered resigning my commis-
sion, so that I could say what I pleased, publicly.”1
Continuing interservice rivalries and the JCS’s inability to achieve a na-
tional outlook disturbed Eisenhower throughout his presidency. On four occa-
sions, he gave the joint chiefs his “lecture” on how they should operate. On a
fifth occasion, he lectured Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson and Admiral
Radford, the JCS chairman. In December, , he told the JCS: “All must resist
efforts to create dissensions. Must work as a team, not fight among themselves.”
In February, , he lectured, “Chiefs should avoid headline seeking—they
should not be advocates of particular service.” A month later, the president
instructed the JCS, “Each chief should subordinate his position as champion of
one particular service to position as one of overall national military advisors.”2
On November , , Eisenhower dined with the service secretaries and
joint chiefs. Afterward, he held a “seminar” on defense organization. The presi-
dent “began by saying that he had had three conferences earlier in the day, all
of them greatly stressing that our people are deeply concerned over rivalry in
our military establishment. The question was repeatedly raised, are we suffi-
ciently unified? Are we getting the best personal judgment of our officers, rather
than a parroting of service party lines?”
Eisenhower said “that the Joint Chiefs must be above narrow service con-
siderations. . . . He said each one should try to approach problems from a na-
tional standpoint. . . . It is wrong to stress, or simply to press for, Army, Navy,
and other service interests. He recalled that in  he had favored a tight
merger of the services, but this had not been adopted. He indicated that he still
holds that view as the soundest solution.”
The president added that the service chiefs “should remove operational
functions from the service staffs which thereafter would concern themselves
with mobilization administration, logistics, etc.” Determined to make assign-
ment to joint positions desirable, he spoke in favor of giving every man on the
Joint Staff “some special recognition.” Eisenhower said “he thought the mem-
bers of the JCS should turn over the executive direction of their service to their
deputy and should concentrate on their joint responsibilities.” He ended his
introductory comments by recalling “previous discussions with them urging
them to take the stance of soldier-statesmen.”
Admiral Arleigh Burke, chief of naval operations, said he disagreed “on
some aspects of the president’s proposal,” and explained that “disagreements
in the JCS do not arise because of service, but because of the individual experi-
ences of the members.” As to the JCS’s reliance on an integrated Joint Staff,
Burke said “he must have staff help and advice, for which he had to look to his
own office.”
Eisenhower “intervened strongly asking why it would not be better to have
composite, well-thought out positions, reflecting the experience of many people
of differing backgrounds and of differing services brought to him [Burke] rather
than the views of his own service.” Burke responded that he saw the potential
for the Joint Staff becoming nothing more than “yes men,” which would pre-
clude having “all angles presented at the JCS table.”
According to Goodpaster, the president also told the chiefs: “He wanted
the American people to have a complete faith in the services . . . he hates to see
the services rush into print, each trying to better its own position, often at the
expense of the others. As a result of this, the American public has lost a large
measure of confidence in the services. . . . He would like to see the step taken
which would bring out that the first and the great loyalty of all members of the
defense establishment is to the Defense Department, which means the United
States of America. . . . He thinks that our people now believe the services are
more interested in the struggle with each other than against an outside foe.”3
Deeply troubled by the debilitating effects of service rivalry, Eisenhower
privately commented, “I simply must find men who have the breadth of un-
derstanding and devotion to their country rather than to a single service that
will bring about better solutions than I get now.”4 He also worried about how
future presidents would deal with the lack of useful advice on military bud-
gets from the chiefs: “Some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present
chair who had not been raised in the military services and who will have little
understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or
no damage.” While Eisenhower’s specific concern was budgetary, his com-
ments proved to be true on all military subjects. In less than three months,
President Kennedy lost confidence in JCS advice and wanted nothing more to
do with them.5
Despite many years of trying, Eisenhower failed to change the behavior of

the service chiefs. His reorganization efforts in  and  were only par-
tially successful, and they sought only limited objectives. Some of Eisenhower’s
key reforms enacted in —removing the military departments from the
operational chain of command and giving the unified commanders full opera-
tional command of assignment forces—were never meaningfully implemented
by the services.
Goldwater and Nunn’s reorganization work picked up where Eisenhower’s
had left off twenty-eight years earlier. The staff study’s proposals encompassed
many of the former president’s unrealized plans for reform. Eisenhower’s por-
traits reassured me as we headed for the showdown with the Pentagon’s brass.
When we entered the conference room, Weinberger was seated at the end
of a small table facing the briefing screen. After a courteous, but not warm,
greeting, he placed Goldwater and Nunn to his left. Deputy Defense Secretary
Will Taft sat to the secretary’s right with the new JCS chairman, Admiral Crowe,
beside him. Fifteen senior officials and officers—including Weinberger’s top
military assistant, Maj. Gen. Colin Powell—occupied seats against the wall. Finn
and Smith joined them.
I had given my briefing dozens of times and knew it well. Without ques-
tions, the briefing lasted forty-five minutes. But questions and comments had
lengthened every presentation to about two hours. That was not the case with
Weinberger and his crew. After I started, not a single interruption occurred.
Only my voice broke the silence. As I was speaking, I remember thinking, I can’t
believe that I am standing before the secretary of defense and telling him how
screwed up his organization is. I don’t think Weinberger could believe it either.
After I finished, I moved to my seat at the table next to Crowe. As I did so,
Weinberger turned his chair to his left so he did not have to look at me.
“It is always useful, in my view, to conduct such reviews,” the secretary
began. “Of course, there is a wide range of opinion on these important mat-
ters. As you know, our internal reviews here at the Pentagon have been more
positive. As always, we are most anxious to hear your views.”
Goldwater, displaying his best behavior, thanked Weinberger for his com-
ments. He then sought for the umpteenth time to reassure him. “Now, Cap,” he
said, “the problems identified in this briefing have existed for a long time. Some
go as far back as the Spanish-American War. So, this work is in no way a criti-
cism of the present administration.”
At that point, things had gone as well as could be expected. It did not last.
Deputy Secretary Taft commented next, and explosions started immediately
thereafter.
Goldwater did not like William Howard Taft IV. In his view, President Taft’s
great-grandson was unqualified to serve in the Pentagon’s number-two post.
During Taft’s confirmation hearing for this position twenty months earlier, in
January, , both Goldwater and Nunn had criticized his qualifications. The
low regard the senators had for Weinberger’s management skills heightened their
concerns about Taft’s qualifications. They felt that a tough, knowledgeable, busi-
ness-experienced deputy secretary was needed. Taft was a highly qualified law-
yer capable of performing many Pentagon jobs, but the two senators judged that
his skills and experience did not match the demands of the deputy position.
Nunn began the attack during Taft’s confirmation hearing by noting that
the deputy secretary normally runs the Defense Department. He then ham-
mered at the nominee’s lack of experience in “broad management responsi-
bilities.”6
Goldwater pursued the same theme. With his great admiration for former
senator Robert Taft especially in mind, he started, “I come here with a respect
for you and your forebears in the field of law that is very great.” He then quickly
added: “But my problem is that we are not looking for lawyers. We are looking
for a man who can fill what, in my opinion, is about the toughest job in the
Pentagon.”
Nunn added another barb, “It takes a lot more than a law degree and an
HEW [Department of Health, Education, and Welfare] background and add-
ing machine to run the Department of Defense.”
Taft’s nomination so upset Goldwater that he carried the fight to the Sen-
ate floor. There, after complimenting Taft and his skills as an attorney, the sena-
tor argued, “He does not possess, however, the necessary qualifications needed
to adequately carry out the duties of deputy secretary of defense.” Many oth-
ers had felt the same. But, as often was the case, only Goldwater said so.7
Although the heat of the confirmation battle had dissipated during the
intervening months, tempers quickly rekindled in Weinberger’s office.
About my presentation, Taft complained, “This briefing makes it seem like
the Defense Department couldn’t even defend the Pentagon’s River Entrance.”
In typical gunslinger fashion, Goldwater let Taft have it: “Your operational
performance has been so piss poor, you guys would have trouble defending the
River Entrance from an attack by a troop of Boy Scouts.”
I do not know why Goldwater said that. He did not believe it. But he sure
picked a fight.
Taft rebuked Goldwater: “That’s the kind of statement I would expect from
members of the media, not from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee. This whole reorganization campaign has been built on exaggeration.”
With that, Nunn—who angers slowly—blew his top. As his face grew red-
der than I had ever seen it, Nunn came to Goldwater’s defense. “How much
evidence do you want?” Nunn snapped. “For forty years, the Pentagon’s prob-
lems have been repeatedly cited by one presidential commission after another.
And each operational failure has served to reinforce the conclusions of these
studies.”
The two secretaries and two senators sparred for the next fifteen min-
utes. While this was going on, I remembered the humorous comments
Goldwater and Nunn had made in the car, and was glad that they, not I, were
tangling with Weinberger and Taft. Crowe, in only his eighth day as chair-
man, and I tried to become wallflowers, but that was hard to do given our
proximity to the action.
After the four leaders tired of pounding on each other, the meeting ended
in typical Washington fashion with everyone saying how useful it had been.
As we stood up from the table, the officials and officers in the chairs along
the wall treated me like a leper. Not a single person extended a hand or even
came near me, except one. General Powell strode up, shook my hand, and said,
“Good briefing.” Given Weinberger’s hostile attitude toward my briefing and
me, that gesture took some guts.
As the two senators stepped into the hallway, Goldwater hit Nunn in the ribs
with his elbow and said, without explanation, “See what I mean—worthless.”
Seizing the High Ground 355
PART
4
March
to Victory
356 March to Victory
CHAPTER 19
Seizing the High Ground
There is in every battlefield a decisive point the
possession of which, more than any other,
helps to secure victory.
—Antoine-Henri Baron de Jomini, The Art of War
B y publicly releasing the staff report at a Senate Armed Services Committee

hearing, Senators Goldwater and Nunn believed they could boldly take
the initiative on reorganization. They could seize the intellectual high ground
and put their powerful adversaries on the defensive. Reform opponents—com-
pelled to attack the position staked out by the two senators—would have to
fight uphill and over unfavorable terrain.
Goldwater and Nunn understood that this critical move—like a daring mili-
tary operation—had to be carefully planned and flawlessly executed. Although
preparatory activities needed to be well handled, the outcome of the hearing
would determine success or failure. The report’s information and ideas had to
be clearly communicated and effectively defended.
The two senators also understood the risks to their cause and themselves.
If they failed, reorganization would suffer a devastating, maybe mortal, set-
back. Goldwater’s career would end with a bitter failure that left him estranged
from his beloved military. Nunn’s rising star as a leading defense intellectual
would be dimmed for years.
As they began to plan their next steps, the senators’ objectives for the staff
report remained unchanged. In Nunn’s words, “We want the report to rally
support from outside government and to frame the debate inside government.”
Goldwater’s and Nunn’s speeches in the Senate had aroused media and public
interest. The report’s release would expand the facts and analysis available to
both audiences. The committee leaders believed that this powerful information
would rightfully grab headlines, command attention, and change minds. “This
report is the best history of our military problems ever written,” said Goldwater.
“I can’t wait for the American people to read it. It will open a lot of eyes.”
Goldwater and Nunn also believed that the report would help structure
debate on this complex subject and overcome the often-chaotic discussions of
preceding years. More importantly, they knew that forcing the debate to center
on the staff study gave them an advantage. The report’s detailed analyses of
problems and underlying causes would complicate their opponents’ efforts to
obfuscate or divert attention from the real issues.
On October , two days after the briefing to Weinberger, the first leak of
the staff study appeared in the press. A Washington Post article announced the
study’s imminent release and discussed its thrust and the Fort A. P. Hill re-
treat.1 Goldwater fumed, “Damn leaks.” Although he and Nunn did not like
the premature publicity, the article was balanced and did no harm.
A few days later, an official notice informed members that the SASC would
hold its hearing on the staff study on the morning of Wednesday, October .
Goldwater and Nunn, wanting to be certain that the media understood pre-
cisely what was going to be discussed, instructed me to brief all interested re-
porters the afternoon before the hearing. “Brief those reporters carefully,” said
Goldwater. “Some of them have trouble getting it right.”
On the morning of the media briefing, another Washington Post article about
the study appeared. This one, however, merely rehashed Goldwater’s and
Nunn’s floor speeches.2
Forty-three newspaper, magazine, and television reporters attended my
briefing. I gave my standard presentation, described the study’s contents, and
answered questions. We then distributed printed copies of the staff study to
enable reporters to do their homework for the hearing and prepare more com-
prehensive articles. Each reporter agreed to embargo information until after
the hearing.
The reporters grasped the magnitude of the issues. They saw the study
and its recommendations as a hot topic. Both the television and print media
made plans to attend the hearing.
Usually, the SASC asked hearing witnesses to deliver an oral statement of
not more than twenty minutes. Assuming that the hearing on October  would
follow traditional practice, I struggled to prepare a clear and comprehensive
twenty-minute statement.
Nunn had a different idea. He wanted me to give my full briefing. “If we are
going to seize the high ground and make the staff report the framework for
debating reorganization,” he argued, “the briefing has to occupy center stage
at the hearing.” After a brief debate, we did it Nunn’s way.
The SASC’s main hearing room in the Russell Building, the oldest of the
Senate’s three office buildings, was far too small to accommodate the antici-
pated public and media interest. So, Chief Clerk Chris Cowart secured a large
hearing room, SD-, in the Dirksen Building.
Being an early riser, Goldwater started all morning hearings at nine
o’clock—an hour earlier than the SASC’s long-standing practice. With many
other early morning demands on their time, members often griped about the
chairman’s starting time; in fact, they were lucky that Goldwater did not choose
to start earlier.
When Rick Finn, Jeff Smith, and I arrived at Room SD- about fifteen
minutes before the hearing, a long line of citizens hoping to attend had already
formed outside. Inside, the room buzzed with excitement. All seats reserved for
the public were taken. Anxious reporters jammed the press tables. Television
cameras from all major private and public networks were positioned to film the
proceedings.
As we moved to the witness table to organize our materials, we learned
that several public networks would carry the hearing live. C-SPAN would show
the entire hearing without interruption, going “gavel to gavel” in Capitol Hill
terminology.
As I took my seat, I looked around at the dais where the name of each of
the nineteen members was displayed in front of his seat. For the ten senators
who did not serve on the Task Force on Defense Organization, this hearing would
be their first engagement in the Goldwater-and-Nunn-led reorganization cam-
paign. I was anxious to see where they stood.
The membership was nearly equally divided along party lines with ten Re-
publicans and nine Democrats. Strom Thurmond, the second-ranking Repub-
lican, sat on Goldwater’s right. Then approaching his eighty-third birthday,
the South Carolina senator was a physical fitness nut. He worked hard to stay
in great shape. At a Senate office party, I once saw Thurmond—feeling chal-
lenged by a young staffer—take off his suit jacket and easily do fifty pushups.
He had more endurance for the long Senate workday than most of his younger
colleagues.
Even though Goldwater had been elected to the Senate first, Thurmond
outranked him in both seniority and years of service. As the Republican candi-
date for president in , Goldwater did not concurrently stand for election to
a third Senate term. When reelected as a senator four years later, Goldwater
had to begin anew in terms of seniority.
On the other hand, Thurmond entered presidential politics before his Ari-
zona colleague. In , while serving as South Carolina’s governor, Thurmond
ran as the States’ Rights Party candidate. He garnered thirty-nine electoral
votes, only thirteen fewer than Goldwater received as a major-party candidate
four elections later.
With his greater seniority, Thurmond could have led the SASC, but instead
he chose to chair the Judiciary Committee. Thurmond, a retired major general
with thirty-six years in the Army Reserve, seldom displayed his pro-army sen-
timents in public. But behind closed doors, officers in green uniforms had the
greatest influence with him.
John Warner of Virginia occupied the next most senior Republican seat.
Warner’s strong naval background began with his service in the navy near the
end of World War II. He also served as a marine during the Korean War. Nearly
twenty years later, President Nixon appointed him as under secretary and then
secretary of the navy. Virginia’s strong business interest and local political in-
volvement with the navy and Marine Corps reinforced the senator’s naval ori-
entation.
Distinguished looking and well dressed, Warner was a true gentleman. He
was also—much to the consternation of his more combative Republican col-
leagues—a peacemaker. Warner worked hard to see the other side’s point of
view and find common ground for reconciliation. More than any other sena-
tor, Warner took a great interest in the staff members and their welfare. He was
generous with his concern and praise. In response to a special effort made on
his behalf, the Virginia senator often gave small gifts or would find another
thoughtful way to return the favor.
Senator Gordon Humphrey sat beside Warner. The unpredictable New
Hampshire Republican was sometimes referred to as a “strange duck.” The
former air force and airline pilot seemed over his head as a senator. Humphrey
focused his Senate work on two major issues: abortion and Afghanistan. This
prompted some colleagues to say that Humphrey never got beyond the letter a
in the alphabet.
Bill Cohen and Dan Quayle, two task force members, ranked fifth and sixth
among Republicans. Cohen, Warner, and Humphrey had been elected to the
Senate in . Cohen should have outranked the other two because he served
three terms in the House. The Republican caucus put Cohen behind Warner
and Humphrey because he made them uncomfortable with his moderate
stances and streak of independence.
Like Warner, the next Republican senator, John East of North Carolina,
also had served in the Marine Corps. Thin and pale, East had serious medical
problems, including polio, which confined him to a wheelchair. Before his Sen-
ate election, East taught at East Carolina University for sixteen years. A
staunch conservative and political sidekick of Jesse Helms, North Carolina’s
senior senator, East went about his senatorial duties in a quiet, professional
manner. Tragically, eight months after the hearing, East’s ills would lead to
his death by suicide.
Senator Pete Wilson of California, another task force member, occupied
the next seat, between East and Jeremiah Denton of Alabama.
A retired admiral, Denton spent nearly eight years in a North Vietnamese

prisoner of war camp. This ordeal had scarred him. Denton angrily and fervidly
supported each and every cause—usually conservative and controversial—that
he took up. He delivered many passionate sermons during committee sessions—
almost all somehow connected to Vietnam. In the beginning, Denton was hon-
ored by his colleagues. Over time, he came to be pitied.
The most junior committee Republican, Texas senator Phil Gramm, par-
ticipated as the fifth majority member on the task force.
On the other side of the dais, the longtime committee chairman, John
Stennis of Mississippi, now occupied the number-two Democratic seat. When
the Republicans took control of the Senate in , he gave up the most senior
minority position to become the ranking Democrat on the more powerful Ap-
propriations Committee. From the old school, Judge Stennis—as the old-timers
called him—never fully adjusted to the passing of the era of powerful chair-
men. A master parliamentarian and tactician, Stennis could—when he was
chairman—tie the committee members in knots and deftly undo them at the
most favorable moment for his side of the issue.
The Mississippi senator had a booming voice in the tradition of the great
Southern orators. In my early years with the committee, I wrote some of
Stennis’s key speeches. He would instruct me to put in some “Mississippi mud.”
Partial to southerners, especially Mississippians, Stennis would say to me, “Boy,
where are you from?”
I would respond, “Sir, I’m from southern Pennsylvania.”
As the committee met that morning, Judge Stennis was serving his thirty-
eighth year in the Senate at age eighty-four. He was merely a shadow of the
former Senate great he had been. He lost a leg a year earlier following an illness
and used a wheelchair. Despite his age and ills, Stennis was not to be taken
lightly. He could still rise up and deliver a sharp lesson to any opponent.
Frank Sullivan, the shrewd staff director of the Appropriations Commit-
tee, helped Stennis remain powerful. Sullivan, who moved with Stennis from
Armed Services to the Appropriations Committee, had earlier been instrumen-
tal in Nunn’s rapid rise as a defense expert. Sullivan retained considerable
influence with Nunn. From several discussions with Sullivan, I knew that he—
perhaps reflecting Stennis’s position—opposed reorganization.
Gary Hart sat next to Stennis. Tall, with chiseled good looks, the intellec-
tual Colorado senator saw himself as a visionary reformer. He spent much of
his time looking to the future and assessing how it should be shaped. Unfortu-
nately, his horizon was often too far in the future and too erudite for most of
the Senate to grasp. Hart was a loner who had few friends in the Senate. His
work style reflected his individualistic nature. He seemed to prefer being the
lone champion of hopeless, idealistic causes than a comrade in important, but
less lofty, efforts.
Jim Exon of Nebraska ranked fourth on the Democratic side. The pipe-smok-
ing former governor had served as a sergeant in the army Signal Corps during
World War II. Big and ham-handed, Exon looked like a Nebraska corn farmer.
But he was not. Before his eight-year stint as governor, Exon had spent nearly
two decades as the founder and president of an office equipment firm. Only he
and four other committee members were not lawyers.
The next three seats belonged to Democratic members of the Task Force
on Defense Organization: Carl Levin, Ted Kennedy, and Jeff Bingaman.
Although fireplug Alan Dixon of Illinois occupied a seat near the end of
the Democratic side of the table, he ranked at the top in terms of being colorful.
His spirited personality made him a staff favorite. Dixon’s thirty years in the
Illinois state government had prepared him well for his Senate duties. He was
adept at taking care of his constituents’ interests, a skill that earned him the
nicknames “Al the Pal” and “The Prince of Pork.”
John Glenn, the famous astronaut, ranked last among Democrats. Al-
though the Ohio senator had served nearly eleven years in the Senate, he
had joined the SASC only ten months earlier. Glenn, a retired marine colonel
and test pilot, demonstrated great interest in technical subjects, especially
aviation.
As nine o’clock approached, members began to file in and take their places.
Not only did the hearing on the staff study initiate a major inquiry, it embodied
the high drama that members love. Senators also love television cameras, and
they were numerous. Not surprisingly, thirteen members attended. The num-
ber would have been higher but for the absence of three task force members:
Cohen, Quayle, and Kennedy. Having already reviewed the staff study in detail,
they may not have seen the need to attend.
Typically, only the chairman and ranking minority member make state-
ments at the beginning of a hearing. This hearing would not be typical. After
Goldwater and Nunn’s opening remarks, eight other senators delivered state-
ments.
Goldwater attempted to preempt the naysayers by repeating key elements
of his earlier speeches: “Oh, there will be those who say the system ain’t broke,
so don’t fix it. However, it is broke, and we need to fix it. If we do not, our mili-
tary effectiveness will be seriously impaired. If we have to fight tomorrow, these
problems will cause Americans to die unnecessarily. And even worse, they may
cause us to lose the fight.”3
The chairman characterized the issue’s importance: “If we are able to cor-
rect these serious organizational deficiencies in the Department of Defense, it
may be the greatest contribution to the national security that many of us will
make in our lifetimes. I feel that strongly about it.”
Nunn reinforced Goldwater’s themes and complimented the chairman for
his “wise leadership.”
Warner then sought recognition to make a statement. Speaking to Gold-

water, the former navy secretary quickly revealed his position, “I admire your
candor, but sir, I must say respectfully, I disagree with the bluntness in your
statement that the system is broke. It is not broke. We are about to take under
consideration this morning the incisions to perform open heart surgery on the
Department of Defense, and I think we have got to proceed with extreme cau-
tion and care.”
Warner had tried to stay out of the reorganization fight as long as possible.
But the pressure for him to join the opposition had apparently finally become
too great. His statement allied him with the antireformist navy.
As evidence that the system was not broken, Warner quoted the chief of
naval operations, Admiral Watkins, as saying, “Today we have the finest Navy
in the world bar none.” He also warned of the adverse impact of criticism of
the Pentagon on morale in the armed forces and congressional treatment of
the defense budget.
I hated to see Warner on the opposing side. Before the committee completed
its reorganization work, everyone expected a vicious political fight. I did not rel-
ish the thought of being at loggerheads with the gentleman from Virginia.
After Warner’s forceful rebuttal, I expected other tough antireform
speeches. To my surprise, the following seven statements were bland. Stennis
spoke next, but only five circumspect sentences. After remarking that he had
just arrived in the Senate when the storm over the National Security Act of
 was beginning to settle, the former chairman said, “I came to learn.”
Following Stennis, Gramm elaborated on Warner’s admonition that those
who wanted to slash the defense budget might misuse the committee’s criti-
cism of the Pentagon’s performance. In line with the position he first announced
at the weekend retreat, the Texas senator repeated his support for strengthen-
ing unified commanders. On the other side of the issue, he mouthed several of
Navy Secretary Lehman’s favorite themes, “I think we should decentralize the
Pentagon and give the service secretaries greater responsibility. I think we should
strip away layers of federal bureaucrats in the Defense Department.”
Hart was recognized next. He cited his long interest in basic military re-
forms and his instrumental role in forming the Military Reform Caucus. The
Colorado senator supported the committee’s reorganization work, calling it “an
historic effort and a vitally needed one.” He also expressed hope “that we do not
forget the necessity to reform the way we think about defense.” This last state-
ment foreshadowed the cold water Hart would throw on Goldwater and Nunn’s
work later in the hearing.
Denton followed with a positive statement: “I am entirely with this effort,
sir.” The retired admiral also noted his four and one-half years of service as the
commandant of the Armed Forces Staff College, one of three schools that pre-
pared officers for joint assignments.
Democrats delivered the last three opening statements. Levin announced

his strong, proreform views: “I am convinced that the security of the United
States continues to be threatened by inadequate coordination of our armed
services.”
Bingaman praised the staff study as “a high-quality report.”
Dixon did not want the study to get too much praise: “I am concerned about
reports that some individuals have seemed to feel that this report is the final
word on what our committee intends to do regarding reorganization of the
Defense Department.”
Goldwater then asked me to give my briefing—the same twenty-slide pre-
sentation that I had given to the Packard Commission and Secretary Weinberger.
Ten minutes into my presentation, Hart inquired whether passing questions
could be asked. Goldwater agreed to this benign request.
The floodgates opened after Hart’s initial question. Warner and Denton
began to pepper me with questions. Warner posed the most memorable one:
“It seems to me that you are relegating a chief of service to the role of honor-
ary chairman of the board. You are literally stripping his epaulets right in front
of his troops, and little is left for him to do other than to be maybe a function-
ary. Now, would you care to disagree with that?”
I did disagree, but Warner had stirred the crowd with his colorful metaphor.
After the seventh interruption by either Warner or Denton—whose posi-
tive opening statement quickly gave way to angry confrontational rhetoric—
Goldwater asked that further questions be held until the end of the briefing.
After I had briefed the last slide, Goldwater turned to questions from members.
In the first round, each senator would be given ten minutes. By then, it was
nearly eleven o’clock. Normally, the question period would begin thirty or forty
minutes after the hearing started. But ten opening statements and my long
briefing—lengthened by interruptions—had consumed nearly two hours. With
ten minutes allotted for each senator’s questions, some members would not
have a chance to ask questions until after noontime. Sensing this, senators
slowly began to depart as questioning progressed.
One can never be fully prepared for a congressional hearing. Having
watched members cross-examine witnesses for more than seven years, I knew
that these senators were among the all-time pros as question-askers. Witnesses
often cracked under their heated, penetrating interrogations. Warner, Denton,
and other antireformers would clearly have this objective in mind in question-
ing me.
The senators’ questions targeted me as leader of the staff effort and the
principal witness. Despite my solid preparation, the questioning seemed long
and grueling. The glare and heat of the television lights did not help.
Goldwater let Nunn ask the first questions. The ranking Democrat knew
the answer for each of his questions. But he wanted to reinforce key points and
get vital information on the record. He led me through a series of questions on

service headquarters staffs, reform alternatives for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
the operational chain of command.
Warner, looking extremely earnest, questioned next. The Virginia senator
initially zeroed in on the origin of the JCS’s rule of unanimity and then chal-
lenged my assertion that the services controlled military promotions. He then
turned to defense procurement, which everyone viewed as a serious problem.
Warner seemed to want to redirect the committee’s work toward this complex
area, where parochial service interests were less threatened. I responded that
Senator Quayle’s Defense Acquisition Policy Subcommittee would be the focus
of needed procurement reforms.
Warner then attacked our proposed JMAC. His thrust was blunted by my
testimony on the CNO’s anachronistic status as the principal adviser to the presi-
dent on naval matters. No other service chief had such special standing.
Throughout Warner’s questions, he and I were like prizefighters at the start
of a fifteen-rounder. Warner would come out swinging, miss with a couple of
haymakers, and then we would end up in clinches. A ringside announcer would
have summed up the first round this way: “Pretty good footwork, a few jabs
landed, but no one connected with any real punches.”
Stennis followed Warner. Instead of asking questions, the senator who
“came to learn” delivered a statement—essentially the one he did not make at
the hearing’s beginning. To the untrained ear, Stennis’s verbal bobbing and
weaving said little. But three statements spoke loudly to me. He complimented
Warner: “I remember him as one of the outstanding men that has been in the
Pentagon.” Seeming to reject the staff study’s proposals, Stennis kept referring
to the need to develop “a substitute plan.” He opined, “Otherwise—and I do
not want to look on the darker side of this thing—I do not see how we will ever
get anything fixed.”
Goldwater and Nunn both responded that they hoped the result of the hear-
ings would be a committee-sponsored package of reorganization measures.
“Well, it may not be,” replied Stennis. “It may not be possible to be. The reac-
tion to this thing is going to be terrific. You already know that.” By the time
Stennis finished, I knew he would oppose reorganization. Goldwater and Nunn
knew it as well.
Goldwater then recognized Senator Hart. Given that Hart had preached
military reform for eight years, I thought he would pursue supporting themes
in his questions. I was soon disappointed. Zeroing in and favorably comment-
ing on the study’s critiques of the Pentagon’s “insufficient mechanisms for
change,” Hart called them “the most depressing or perhaps I should say frus-
trating pages in your book.” After talking about the Pentagon leadership’s lack
of will, he said, “We have got to change the way people think.”
Hart then stunned us. He expressed his concerns with Goldwater and
Nunn’s approach, which he inaccurately characterized as “focusing on rear-

ranging the boxes at the top.” Then Hart added another barb: “I just hope that
somehow we do not make the traditional mistake of confusing efficiency with
effectiveness.”
“When we started this study it was the term ‘effectiveness’ that we had in
mind,” I fired back. “That was our entire focus.”
Talk about being wounded by friendly fire. I had expected reform oppo-
nents to put us in their sights, but I did not anticipate incoming rounds from
behind our own lines. I agreed with both of Hart’s ideas. That was not the
problem. My disappointment came from his assumption that only he under-
stood these truths and from the condescending tone of his remarks to
Goldwater and Nunn.
Absent at the beginning of the hearing, Senator Wilson used his question-
ing time to deliver a supportive statement. After congratulating Goldwater and
Nunn, Wilson said, “I went to Senator Tower a couple of years ago and ex-
pressed concerns about the organization and the fact that I thought it would be
healthy to undertake a reexamination.”
I was surprised that Wilson referenced his role—arranging the meeting
between Tower and retired marine general Brute Krulak—that had initiated
Tower’s reorganization fiasco. I was even more surprised when Wilson later
added, “I congratulate the staff on a truly comprehensive examination . . . a
document that will be the basis for, I think, perhaps the most enlightened and
thorough examination the subject has had in a very long time.”
Like Gramm, Wilson showed interest in strengthening the unified com-
manders, saying, “I think that the [report] chapters that focus upon the prob-
lems of the unified commanders are perhaps those of the greatest immediate
interest and concern.”
The next three questioners—Exon, Bingaman, and Goldwater—were
proreform. Their questions provided the opportunity to expand on favorable
themes. Goldwater, like Nunn, posed questions that had been carefully con-
structed for maximum effect. The chairman’s turn ended the first round of
questions.
Warner was ready for a second round. Turning to Goldwater, he said, “First
I would like to say, you know my respect for you and Mr. Nunn, and I hope I
have not been too obstreperous today. But I purposely have stayed out of the
study so that I could be a free agent and to offer constructive criticism.”
Warner then turned toward the witness table and continued: “And I pay
respect to you, Mr. Locher, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Finn. As Harry Truman said, ‘If
you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ You have taken the heat. You
have taken it admirably. But we may disagree.”
As Warner was speaking, I tried to calculate the session’s impact. So far, I
told myself, we’ve effectively presented and defended the staff study. I could tell
that Goldwater and Nunn were pleased. But the hearing was not over yet.
Warner was about to turn up the heat in the kitchen.
By then, the former navy secretary was carrying the entire load for the
antireform side. Denton had departed before his turn to ask questions. Gramm
and Wilson—reversing the hostility that marked their task force work—made
supportive statements and did not ask any questions. Quayle did not attend.
Although Warner must have been encouraged by Stennis’s statement, the
Mississippi senator had not helped to challenge the hearing’s proreform
message.
Warner’s first question in the second round centered on who would select
the senior personnel if the service secretary and chief had a common staff. When
I replied, “The secretary,” Warner responded, “Then you have really stripped
the service chief down to his skivvy drawers, because that [his staff] is the source
of his power.” As the hearing progressed, Warner seemed to think less and less
of our ideas. An hour earlier he had viewed us as just stripping the service
chief ’s epaulets, now he saw us removing all but his undershorts.
Warner then skillfully presented two arguments. First, he addressed the
issue of good people: “But sometimes it seems to me that if we have the right
man in the right place at the right time, under the existing framework, I think
they can do a credible job.”
Had I been given the opportunity to respond, I would have said, “We don’t
need to choose between good people and good organization. We should em-
phasize both.”
Turning to his second argument, Warner said: “We have singled out the
Pueblo, we have singled out certain other chapters which are not distinguished
in our military history, but nevertheless this system has given us forty years of
peace in Europe.”
On other occasions, I had heard Nunn pierce this argument with the short
retort, “Are you saying because of this system or in spite of?” On this day, he did
not go after his colleague from Virginia.
Warner saved his biggest question for last, “What authority do we in the
legislative branch have in telling the commander-in-chief of the armed forces,
the president, that his organizational structure is broken?”
My response buried that issue for good: “We have the responsibilities un-
der the Constitution to provide for the rules and regulations of the armed forces.
. . . The Department of Defense is a creation of the Congress. All of these posi-
tions are specified in law, and the Congress has essentially specified the current
organizational arrangements.” Nearly every other issue raised during the hear-
ing would be debated many times, but not this one.
With only Goldwater, Warner, and himself remaining, Nunn decided to
ask additional questions. He started by saying to Goldwater, “You and I and
Senator Warner have about worn everybody else out here.” I clearly was worn
out, and I was certain that Finn and Smith were as well. By then we had been
on the hot seat and under the camera lights for three hours. We were ready for
the hearing to end. But Nunn—clearly pleased with how things were going—
wanted to get more information on the record, particularly in front of the tele-
vision audience. Fortunately, Nunn ran out of questions before we ran out of
endurance.
At : P.M., Goldwater adjourned the hearing.
As Finn, Smith, and I finally stood up from our seats at the witness table,
well-wishers surged around us to offer congratulations. Goldwater gave us a
salute before he limped off. Nunn came down from the dais to praise our perfor-
mance. Goldwater’s aide, Gerry Smith, pushed his way to the front of the crowd
and said, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Locher, for taking on and de-
stroying your intellectual inferiors like that. That hearing was so much fun. I
loved it. Goldwater loved it. There wasn’t one thing that the Warners or the
Dentons or any of the pronavy guys could say that you didn’t have an abso-
lute, very calm, reasoned response to.”4
I was pleased with the outcome of the hearing. We had done our part. The
hearing had gone well, better than we had anticipated. Although I felt that we
had effectively articulated our message, I was uncertain how the media would
react.
In the hours after the hearing, Finn, Smith, and I anxiously awaited “ques-
tions for the record” from antireform senators. When a senator does not have a
chance to ask all of his questions during a hearing, he can submit them for
written responses from the witnesses. We feared that senators might bombard
us with questions, maybe as many as several hundred. Reform opponents knew
that we were few in number and that we were already worn out. Preparing
written answers could tie us up for weeks. We breathed a long sigh of relief
when it became clear that opponents were not going to put us through that
misery. Not a single question for the record was submitted.
The hearing generated enormous public interest in the staff study. The two thou-
sand copies printed were gone in less than twenty-four hours. The committee
had been unable to print more because Congress limits the amount of money
that can be spent printing a staff report. Normally, this poses no obstacle. A
staff report usually totals only fifteen to twenty pages. At that length, more
than fifty thousand copies could be printed. But our -page tome constrained
the print run. To meet the overwhelming demand, the committee began the
several-month process of having the Senate and House pass a concurrent reso-
lution authorizing the printing of more copies.
In the meantime, interested organizations and individuals made thousands
of photocopies. This became a major activity at the Pentagon, where everyone
wanted a personal copy. Earlier, we had given DoD the opportunity to extend
the committee’s print run at the Government Printing Office. This would have
been an inexpensive way to obtain a large number of copies. But Pentagon
officials—dismissing the staff report in advance—insisted they would need “only
a few copies.”
At  P.M., the committee’s small reorganization staff gathered around the
office television to see if the network evening news would cover the hearing.
About ten minutes into the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather provided an an-
swer. He opened a two-and-one-half-minute segment by saying: “A long-awaited
and much-leaked Senate panel’s study of the Pentagon chain of command is
officially out tonight, and calling for top-to-bottom changes. And some sup-
porters of the present system are reacting as if someone just tossed one of those
$, monkey wrenches into the works.”5
Although we found Rather’s characterization of the study as “much-
leaked” to be bizarre, we were ecstatic about his report. With whoops and hollers,
we turned the dial to catch ABC World News Tonight.
Peter Jennings was just starting his report on the hearing with a familiar
quote: “‘It is broke and we need to fix it.’ That was Senator Barry Goldwater
today commenting on the system by which this country defends itself, how the
Pentagon runs itself, and how the Congress oversees the Pentagon.” Jennings
later said that the staff study “has raised up quite a hornets’ nest.”6
Both news programs presented the views of opponents: Warner and Sec-
retary Lehman on CBS and Admiral Moorer on ABC. But overall, we judged
that the television reports had put a positive spin on Goldwater and Nunn’s
reorganization work.
The next morning, when I picked up a copy of the Washington Post from
the front steps of my home, I saw a front-page headline that read, “Pentagon
Is Mismanaged, Report Says.” A subtitle added, “Replacement of Joint Chiefs,
Reorganization Urged by Senators.” The article’s lead paragraph reported:
“The Defense Department’s preparations for war and ability to fight are seri-
ously hampered by interservice rivalry, poor Pentagon management, and con-
gressional nitpicking, and needs a major overhaul, according to a Senate
report released yesterday.” As I read further down, I was encouraged to see
that the article accurately and positively reported key ideas from the staff
study.7
The article also noted the uphill nature of the reorganization struggle.
Reflecting the committee’s pro-Pentagon position in recent years, it labeled
the SASC “a supporter of the status quo in the Defense Department.” Based
on the fireworks at the hearing, the article observed that Warner “signaled
that the type of drastic reorganization envisioned by the report will not be
achieved without a fight.”
The Post article also reported the Pentagon’s negative reaction. Based upon
the previous week’s interception by navy jets of an Egyptian airliner carrying
29. Herblock cartoon in the Washington Post, October 18, 1985.

(Herblock at Large, Pantheon, 1987.)
suspected Palestinian terrorists, DoD “disparaged the report’s critical tone.” A

Pentagon spokesman was quoted as saying, “These kind of conclusions with-
out the data to back them up don’t match up with our recent experience where
we had a military mission assigned by the president on very short notice to our
military forces, which was carried out with skill, excellence, flawlessly.”
By the time I arrived at the office, Goldwater’s and Nunn’s press assistants
were reporting that other newspapers were featuring articles similar to the
Post’s. Page one of the Atlanta Journal declared, “Panel suggests dissolving Joint
Chiefs of Staff.” The New York Times titled its piece, “Proposed Revamping of
Military Calls for Disbanding Joint Chiefs.” The Baltimore Sun had two front-
page articles: “Senate report suggests broad military reforms” and “Coordina-
tion said to be a problem.” The Wall Street Journal reported, “Senators Clash
Over Proposal to Shift Power at Pentagon Away From Services.”8 Within a few
hours, we knew that the hearing and study had received the extensive and fa-
vorable coverage we had hoped for.
Our efforts to educate the public on reorganization received an unexpected
boost. Viewer interest had prompted C-SPAN to continue to air their tape of the
hearing. It was shown every other day or so for several months.
30. Tom Flannery cartoon in the Baltimore Sun, October 28, 1985.
31. Jim Dent cartoon in the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette,

October 21, 1985.
32. Tony Auth cartoon of October 16, 1985 (©1985 The Philadelphia
Inquirer. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate.
All rights reserved.)
The Pentagon took a few days before firing back. Two days after the hear-
ing, a short article in the Baltimore Sun covered the DoD arguments.9 The
Pentagon’s first long rebuttal, written by Seth Cropsey, deputy under secretary
of the navy, appeared in the New York Post on October . Entitled “How Not to
Reform Defense,” the article began: “That most dangerous of alliances—inex-
perienced congressional staffers and the Washington think-tanks—has rumbled
up to the ramparts, and the defenses they’re aiming at are ours.” By attacking
people, not ideas, Cropsey’s rebuttal got off to a poor start. The article argued
that reform advocates merely wanted to reduce defense spending and to find a
political “quick fix” for Pentagon problems. Cropsey judged that the proposed
reforms would add more bureaucracy, isolate civilian leaders, reduce civilian
control, and lead to far less competition of ideas.10
Just as newspaper columnists began to taper off their reporting, political
cartoonists and editorial writers kept the topic alive. Cartoonists often found
the military an attractive target, and the reorganization struggle sparked their
imagination. Two days after the hearing, a Herblock cartoon in the Washing-
ton Post became the first of many to humorously promote Goldwater and
Nunn’s cause.
Editorial writers overwhelming supported the need for reform. The con-
servative Washington Times’s editorial page addressed the issue first, saying, “It’s
heartening to find defense-minded Sens. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn urg-
ing reform.” Referencing Rambo movies and the flak the two senators were
taking from the Pentagon, the Times editorial concluded, “The ‘Rambo right’
should remember that its hero was obliged to overcome the defense establish-
ment before he could get down to serious business.”11
Magazines also were soon running favorable articles about the report and
hearing. In editions that hit the newsstands on October , Newsweek reported
“The Pentagon Under Siege,” and U.S. News & World Report announced “Penta-
gon Comes Under Fire From Its Friends.”12 Most notably, Armed Forces Journal,
Ben Schemmer’s magazine, which was widely read in defense circles, devoted
an “extra”—only the third in the magazine’s  years—to the staff study and
Goldwater’s and Nunn’s floor speeches.13 In an editorial, Schemmer wrote:
“The editors and staff of Armed Forces Journal believe that staff study, Defense
Organization: The Need for Change, is the single most important body of work on
national security matters done so far this century. The Senate’s deliberate ac-
tion on its conclusions and recommendations may well endure as the greatest
contribution to America’s security we’ll see in our lifetimes.”
After the hearing and its favorable repercussions, Goldwater and Nunn
were solidly entrenched on the high ground. As they prepared for a lengthy
series of reorganization hearings, the two senators were still the underdogs
with powerful enemies and significant obstacles yet to overcome. But the odds
against them were not as long as they once were.
CHAPTER 20
Transition to the Offensive
A sudden powerful transition to the offensive—the
flashing sword of vengeance—is the
greatest moment for the defense.
—Carl von Clausewitz, On War
A fter releasing the staff report on October , , the Senate Armed Ser-
vices Committee paused for four weeks before continuing hearings. This
delay allowed prospective witnesses time to study the staff report. Senators
Goldwater and Nunn had instructed each witness to base his testimony on
the report.
The two leaders came to the hearings in a defensive posture. They expected
the Pentagon, especially the joint chiefs, to mount a full-scale counterattack,
both in testimony and behind the scenes. Men in uniform enjoyed respect and
credibility on Capitol Hill. Their arguments could persuade senators to doubt
the wisdom of ignoring the advice of the nation’s top officers.
To Goldwater’s and Nunn’s great surprise, Department of Defense witnesses
offered weak, unconvincing testimony. As the hearings progressed, the two lead-
ers and other proreform members—sensing the superiority of their argu-
ments—transitioned to an offensive posture.
Goldwater and Nunn approved a plan for ten hearings, with Secretary
Weinberger appearing first on November . The hearings’ key objective was
to solidify the staff report’s role as the framework for debate. Defending its
analyses and recommendations ranked second. Goldwater and Nunn hoped
also to use the hearings to continue to influence members’ thinking. Last,
they wanted to build the public case in support of Pentagon reform. Hearings
Transition to the Offensive 375
do not efficiently communicate ideas and information, so neither the two sena-
tors nor their staff harbored great expectations.
The staff report, soon called the Locher report, “created quite a stir” in
the defense community. Two scholars later described it as “the most radical
of the reform studies,” observing that its extreme recommendations “made
the Locher report the lightning rod for criticism of JCS reform and subjected
Locher himself to a good deal of verbal abuse; interviewees referred to a
‘lynch-Locher’ mentality among many in the Pentagon after the report ap-
peared.” The Defense Department had become so hostile regarding the study
that most of my Pentagon friends told me they could not afford to be seen
with me in public. The two scholars add that “Locher’s recommendations
made those of other studies appear more moderate and appealing, suggest-
ing that Locher helped pull the ongoing legislative effort toward more far-
reaching reforms.”1
Officially, the Pentagon had “stayed mum in advance of the hearings.”
Behind the scenes, however, Goldwater “caught flak from members of the mili-
tary community.” Nunn reported that the chairman “continues to be under
. . . pressures . . . to back off.” Goldwater reportedly had “been cornered at
parties and been bombarded by calls from current and retired military per-
sonnel asking him to drop the reform issue.” Retired admiral Robert J. Hanks
vociferously criticized the chairman: “Goldwater’s outlived his usefulness. The
report goes too far. That, coupled with the fact that he’s a heavy Air Force
advocate, makes it clear there’s as much parochial thought in Goldwater as
there is in any service.”2
To complement the hearings, Finn, Smith, and I arranged one-on-one meet-
ings between committee members and former senior defense officials and offic-
ers who were proreform. Military legislative assistants on members’ personal
staffs advised us which former officials and officers had credibility with their
bosses. For example, George K. “Ken” Johnson Jr. knew that his boss, Sen. Strom
Thurmond, would be influenced by Gen. Shy Meyer’s views on reorganization.
At our urging, Meyer met several times with Thurmond.3 Throughout the fall,
Finn, Smith, and I encouraged such meetings with members.
Goldwater and Nunn also arranged a series of meetings during which I
would brief senior officials on the study. The first meeting targeted key House
Republican leaders, of whom only Minority Whip Trent Lott and Republican
Conference Chairman Jack Kemp attended. Congressmen Bill Nichols and
John Kasich, fearful that House Republicans might back the Pentagon, had
urged Goldwater and Nunn to arrange this session. Congressmen Gingrich,
Whitehurst, and Kasich attended to reinforce the senators’ message. Lott ap-
peared supportive, but Kemp communicated his opposition. At one point,
Lott said to Kemp, “We all agree that we have problems, don’t we, Jack?” Kemp
shrugged.4
Goldwater and Nunn scheduled a session on November  with House Speaker

Tip O’Neill. My briefing fascinated the speaker. When I finished, O’Neill was eager
to know more. Finally, Goldwater and Nunn ran out of time, but they left me with
the speaker for another hour to answer his questions and provide more details.
Another session was held with Vice Pres. George Bush on November  in
his office just off the Senate floor. Bush’s questions impressed me. He had quickly
grasped the central issues presented in my briefing. I also remember being amused
by the Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist.
The committee heard vintage Weinberger during his November  appearance.

Despite the best efforts of Admiral Crowe and Assistant Secretary for Legisla-
tive Affairs Russ Rourke, Weinberger maintained his stonewalling stance. His
story was simple: Nothing in the Pentagon is broken, so fixes are not needed.
Weinberger said the staff study and other reports “seem to be talking about a
Pentagon that was perhaps in existence before, which we do not fully recognize
now. We think that . . . the practices and problems of the past have been cor-
rected.” When evidence of continuing problems was cited, Weinberger became
an absolute bulldog. He admitted nothing, exasperating many members, and
wore them down by his tenacity. The Washington Post correctly described
Weinberger’s testimony as “combative and obfuscatory.”5
One key debate focused on whether the services had difficulty communicat-
ing with one another during the Grenada invasion. To a question from Senator
Levin about inadequate communications, Weinberger replied, “In Grenada, there
was adequate interoperability to enable us to do the job that we had to do.”6
Nunn knew better. Shortly after the invasion, the Georgia Democrat had
heard directly from the troops about communications problems. Nunn was also
familiar with DoD’s own after-action report, which criticized interservice com-
munications. The ranking Democrat was not about to let Weinberger smooth
over communications problems in Grenada, especially when they epitomized
the services’ inability to operate together.
Nunn rebutted the secretary’s answer to Levin: “We have a classified re-
port here from the Department of Defense . . . Mr. Secretary, that in all respects
directly contradicts your assessment.”
“Overall [the communications problems] were not of the nature that in-
terfered with the success of the operation,” replied Weinberger, repeating his
earlier bottom line.
The senator and defense secretary went round and round. Each time Nunn
cited serious communications problems, Weinberger responded that they had
not interfered with the success of the operation.
Exasperated, Nunn belittled Weinberger’s testimony: “That is very crafty
wording; the operation was successful; therefore, nothing interfered with the
success of the operation because it was successful. That is ridiculous.”
Despite this clash, Nunn got Weinberger’s help in discrediting Navy Secre-
tary Lehman. The senator quoted Lehman as saying, “The Pentagon could be
run at a twenty-percent savings if we could get rid of those , bureaucrats
in OSD who are accountable essentially to nobody.” Nunn then asked
Weinberger: “Who are those , bureaucrats he is talking about? . . . Are they
not directly under your control?”7
“The , have never been identified to me by name or function,” the
secretary answered. “I think there is a bit of hyperbole there.” Citing the OSD’s
size as less than two thousand, Weinberger did not know how Lehman intended
to cut six thousand or save $ billion. He indirectly slammed Lehman by con-
cluding: “John is perfectly free to make criticisms and the comments that he
does and from them I think we all benefit, especially if we investigate them and
find out they are not fully justified.”
Senator Warner, a former navy secretary, spoke next. He pointed out that
“he would have been beheaded” had he made comments like Lehman’s during
his time in the Pentagon.
“Occasionally you have to take executory measures,” Weinberger quipped,
“but we try to limit them.”
Despite this moment of levity, by the hearing’s end the faces of many sena-
tors were flushed from arguing with the intransigent secretary. Goldwater was
clearly frustrated by Weinberger’s uncooperative stance and lawyerly answers.
As the hearing drew to a close, Goldwater exploded: “Mr. Secretary, I have to be
honest with you, you did not answer the questions, you have not approached
this thing right. I think you had better go back and read this report of ours. We
are going to get you back again. We want your answers.”8
“We are reading it very carefully,” Weinberger replied. “I will be glad to
come back.”
“Read it again,” Goldwater fired back, and slammed down the gavel to end
the hearing.
Goldwater and Nunn later decided that the committee would not benefit
from hearing Weinberger again.
The defense secretary scored many debating points during his appear-
ance. He was elusive and evasive. Not a single senator nailed him. Yet despite
the secretary’s masterful performance, his testimony damaged DoD’s posi-
tion. Before the hearing, Weinberger had little credibility on Capitol Hill. After
the hearing, he had less. The staff study’s analyses were too hard-hitting and
well documented to be dismissed by clever rhetoric. Weinberger’s testimony con-
veyed to the committee either that his mind was closed on reorganization or
that he did not comprehend the need or opportunity to make improvements. In
the view of proreform members, if the Pentagon’s top man was unyielding and
unthinking, little could be expected from his subordinates. They began to write
off DoD as a meaningful participant in the reform process.
Many in the Pentagon recognized problems with the secretary’s testimony.

A summary prepared for Admiral Crowe reported that the hearing “went poorly
in its later stages . . . the secretary clearly hurt his case where he was unwilling
to admit the severity of communications problems in Grenada that had already
been documented in a DoD report.”9
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel J. Kaufman, a West Point classmate of mine
who was reviewing reorganization for the army chief of staff, recalled his
reaction: “I was there, and the only way to describe it was that Weinberger
took a spear in the chest. After that hearing, it was clear to all of us on the
army chief ’s reorganization review committee that things were going to
change. We made the argument to General Wickham that you can help craft
the outcome or you can be run over by this truck, but it is very clear that
we’re going to get reorganization.”10 Although some in the Pentagon held
this view, on Capitol Hill the perspective was that the outcome was still highly
uncertain.
Weinberger gave President Reagan an upbeat account of his testimony “in
opposition to the fundamental changes in the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed by
[the SASC] staff”:
I reported that the Joint Chiefs system was working well and that you
and I felt that we had received good and timely advice from the Joint Chiefs.
But, having put much staff work in this project, both Barry Goldwater
and Sam Nunn seem determined to move ahead with proposals that would
either seriously weaken, or abolish altogether, our Joint Chiefs. The staff
report makes many other recommendations, and I offered our full assis-
tance to work with the Senate committee to reach agreement on some of
these recommendations. Given the momentum behind this, we must en-
sure the proposed changes are fully considered to avoid serious disrup-
tion to our system of command. I understand that you will be briefed on
the committee’s staff report. I have felt it important that I keep an open
mind as we receive the committee’s input, and I certainly have tried to
avoid premature endorsement of all their recommendations. The Joint
Chiefs organization is too valuable an asset for us lightly to cast aside on
the say-so of a Senate staff report.11
Goldwater and Nunn devoted the next four sessions to hearing from thirteen
former civilian and military officials who the senators believed would present
more candid and constructive testimony. Such commentary, less constrained
by the Pentagon party line, would provide a useful context before hearing again
from DoD witnesses, particularly the service chiefs. Ten of the thirteen witnesses
testified in support of major reorganization, with differences primarily over the
potential effectiveness of various reforms.
On November , Gen. Shy Meyer, Adm. Harry D. Train II, and Gen. Russell E.
Dougherty, USAF (Ret.), provided strong proreform testimony. There was only
one dissenter: marine general Brute Krulak. Krulak said the staff “study does
little more than nibble at the edges of stale concepts, offering more bureaucracy
and more complexity.”12 The proreform drumbeat continued the next day when
former defense secretaries Schlesinger and Brown testified.
Goldwater began the November  session with Admiral Moorer and Gen-
eral Jones by calling attention to the House’s passage the preceding day of a
JCS reorganization bill by an “overwhelming” vote of  to . “The House
JCS vote is a very powerful one,” said Goldwater. “I believe the House action
will build momentum for substantial JCS reorganization.”13
Weinberger reported the House action to Reagan, calling the legislation “a
very moderate bill.” Giving the situation an unwarranted positive spin, the sec-
retary wrote: “While we did not publicly embrace the bill, we were able to have
a significant impact in minimizing the changes and forestalling other more
radical reorganization plans similar to those currently being discussed in the
Senate and elsewhere. We will continue to work closely with the Congress on
this sensitive issue to protect our vital interests. We must, however, guard against
perhaps well-intentioned, but nonetheless overreactive legislative solutions.”14
Shortly after the November  hearing started, Senator Warner, seeing an
evolving pattern, commended Goldwater and Nunn for the selection of wit-
nesses and the hearings schedule. “I am confident that the full committee will
eventually come out with a unanimous decision on this difficult subject,” he
predicted.15 At that moment, Warner may have been the only member or staffer
who believed the process would end with unanimous agreement.
Admiral Moorer’s testimony started where his criticisms of the staff study
had left off at Fort A. P. Hill, saying, “I do not agree with many things in this
staff study.”16 He began by attempting to impress members by outlining his ca-
reer. This tactic might work at a Rotary Club luncheon, but it was ill suited for
an audience of senators. The former naval aviator told of being at Pearl Har-
bor, where he “saw , American boys dead, laid out on the grass, ships
burning and exploding.” When he next said, “I was shot down during the war
in flames,” Goldwater leaned toward Nunn and whispered, “That’s nothing to
brag about.”
Midway through Moorer’s ten-minute biographical sketch, as he listed his
medals, Nunn whispered to Goldwater, “When a witness believes that he has
to spend all this time telling you who he is, he probably won’t say much that’s
worth listening to.”
After Moorer complained about the president and defense secretary not ac-
cepting JCS advice during the Vietnam War, he noted that people had said to
him, “You could resign.” He told the committee, “I thought about it, but the one
thing that was driving me during that time was the POWs, and I was determined
I was going to stay until I got them free.”17 Moorer’s argument was emotional
but untenable: he allowed the POW issue to outweigh efforts to correct what he
viewed as a flawed approach to the war.
Moorer’s written statement ended with this observation: “I consider that
the staff report is filled with overstatements based on opinions and hearsay
rather than fact and, consequently, the majority of the corrective actions are
excessive and often are aimed at solving problems that have been or are being
progressively solved.”18
Introducing General Jones, Goldwater said, “You are the fellow who sort
of dreamed this all up, so take it away.”19 Jones’s insightful testimony contra-
dicted and overshadowed Moorer’s. However, the admiral’s passionate delivery
had masked the intellectual weakness of his position.
After hearing from Moorer and Jones, the committee remained in session
to hear from Admiral McDonald, the soon-to-retire commander of the Atlan-
tic Command. McDonald gave a positive statement, commended the staff study,
and endorsed many recommendations. He did not, however, support designat-
ing the chairman as the principal military adviser. Nonetheless, his qualified
support came as a pleasant surprise.
In a letter to Goldwater on December , the day Congress returned from its

Thanksgiving recess, Weinberger surprisingly agreed to implement a number
of reforms. Sensing that DoD verged on irrelevance, the secretary’s advisers
had pleaded with him to take a more cooperative approach with Congress.
Weinberger finally agreed.
“I always thought that Weinberger played it very dumbly,” said Admiral
Crowe. “I had some fierce arguments with him over reorganization. I actually
thought I had won at one time. My argument in winning was, ‘Look, Cap, it’s
going to happen, and you can march up and down over here and stomp your
feet all you want to, but that’s counterproductive. You ought to say, ‘Yeah, we
want it to happen,’ and then try and shape it—if you’ve got some things you
feel strongly about—try and shape it, but get on board. And one time he said,
‘Okay, I’ll do that.’ But he didn’t mean it. He just resisted.”20
Weinberger’s letter supported making the JCS chairman the principal mili-
tary adviser. He also endorsed authorizing the secretary of defense to place the
chairman in the operational chain of command—a bad idea in our view—and
to use the chairman as the secretary’s agent in supervising the unified com-
mands. The secretary also supported statutory changes to make the chairman
the Joint Staff’s sole boss and to establish the position of vice chairman.
Weinberger qualified this last idea by arguing: “The vice chairman should not
outrank the JCS and he should not act as chairman in the absence of the chair-
man.” The secretary was pushing the services’ arguments for a vice chairman
who was not a vice chairman.21
Weinberger’s letter meant little to me because it offered little. The secretary

addressed only a few of the many needed changes, and we disagreed, at least in
part, with two of his five proposals. But to many committee members, the let-
ter was much more significant than the few bones it contained. Senator Kennedy
excitedly asked me, “Did you see Weinberger’s letter?” When I told him I was
nonplussed by what it offered, he answered, “Yes, yes, but the significance lies
in Weinberger admitting—and remember he doesn’t admit anything—that
problems exist. His letter is the crack in the wall.”
Weinberger informed Reagan of his letter: “We made our first initial re-
port to the committee this week after testifying in November. By indicating to
the committee we could support putting into law certain improvements, which
we have already made in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have
demonstrated our continued willingness to work with the committee as they
move toward almost certain legislative initiatives early next year.”22
The fall of  was a difficult one for Goldwater. The long, trying first session
of the Ninety-ninth Congress had taken its toll on his health and stamina. Illness
occasionally precluded his participation in planned reorganization activities.
When this was the case, Nunn insisted that these activities be put off until
Goldwater was ready.
The health of the senator’s wife, Peggy, had taken a serious turn for the
worse. She had been confined in an Arizona nursing home for many years. The
senator would frequently travel to see her. In the late fall, Mrs. Goldwater’s con-
dition became more severe, and Senator Goldwater increasingly devoted his
time and attention to her care. When the Senate reconvened on December ,
Goldwater remained in Arizona with his wife and asked Thurmond and Nunn
to run the hearings in his absence. He missed the last five days of hearings,
which ended on December , the day after Mrs. Goldwater died.
With half of the Goldwater-Nunn team missing, the effort lurched along
out of balance. Moreover, not knowing the status of Mrs. Goldwater’s health,
we did not know how long the chairman would be gone. On the positive side,
thrusting Thurmond into the role of acting chairman had long-term benefits.
It brought him into the work’s mainstream and made him responsible for keep-
ing it on track.
On December , Thurmond chaired his first reorganization hearing, the
fourth session with former officials. Four retired officers appeared: General
Vessey, General Goodpaster, Admiral Long, and General McBride. Thurmond
read a statement that Goldwater had sent from his wife’s hospital. It ended with
“a few remarks to every person in uniform:”
No matter what color uniform you wear, no matter what rank or insignia
you carry, no matter what command you now have or might ever have,
you are going to remember these hearings all of your days, and my guess
is that you are going to thank God they came about.
I know how hard it is to find problems within your own organization.
I was a corporate president myself once, and I was also the commander
of different units during World War II. Since and before that time, if you
ever wanted me to get mad, start making wisecracks about my outfit. But
after leaving them and thinking back, I could think of times when criti-
cism was deserved. Had I not been so wedded to my job and so parochial
in my thinking, I could have understood it at the time. . . . Only by long,
honest discussion between all of us will the matters that need correcting
be brought to the surface. . . .
Please keep this one thought in mind. None of us live forever, but with
proper care, allegiance, and adherence to basic principles, we have a coun-
try that will endure, so let us put our minds to that task.23
Vessey offered bland, neutral testimony highlighted by a plea “to make sure
that we do not throw out the baby with the bath water.” Goodpaster delivered a
powerful statement that quickly brushed aside Vessey’s more upbeat tone by
speaking to “inherent and fundamental weaknesses” in the JCS system. Long
emphasized the need to strengthen the unified commanders while recommend-
ing against making the JCS chairman the principal military adviser. McBride
focused on the needs to improve joint officer management and streamline Joint
Staff procedures. He based his testimony on the recommendations of the
Chairman’s Special Study Group, on which he had served.24
The strategy of hearing from retired officials had worked well. Of the thir-
teen, only Moorer and Krulak gave outright antireform testimony, while Vessey
was neutral. All others favored reform. McDonald and Long qualified their
support for reform more than any of the others, but they were passionately
proreform on a number of important issues. These four hearings gave members
the opportunity to explore many issues, and the improved understanding
provided valuable context for the antireform arguments of the service chiefs.
On December , the committee, with Warner chairing, met to take testi-
mony from the uniformed heads of the four services. Goldwater and Nunn had
believed that this session would pose their biggest challenge. Surprisingly, the
chiefs stumbled through weak and often confused testimony. Afterward, Nunn
happily concluded, “The chiefs never laid a glove on us.”
If anyone should have understood the Pentagon’s organizational deficien-
cies, it was the army chief of staff, Gen. John Wickham. He had served—more
than any other officer on active duty—in multiservice assignments that ex-
posed him to the devastating consequences of organizational problems. More
puzzling still, Wickham’s resistance to reform clashed with the army’s historic
approach. The army had traditionally supported the organizational concepts
that Goldwater and Nunn were championing. Wickham’s predecessor, Gen-

eral Meyer, had openly supported reorganization. Goldwater and Nunn had
continuously held out hope that Wickham would eventually come to support
their efforts. While this had not occurred, they never expected the army chief
to be a furious opponent.
Moreover, Wickham ignored the advice of the special study group that he
had established: the U.S. Army Special Review Committee on Department of
Defense Organization. Consisting of two colonels, three lieutenant colonels,
one major, and two civilians, the committee was chartered to subject the SASC
staff report to “an independent look, unconstrained by prior Army positions.”
The army had determined that such an effort was needed after a Joint Staff
group had reviewed the report and “had nonconcurred in all of its recom-
mendations.”25
The special review committee worked for Lt. Gen. Carl Vuono, the army’s
deputy chief of staff for operations. Lieutenant Colonel Richard H. Witherspoon,
another of my West Point classmates, served as Vuono’s reorganization action
officer. Vuono graduated from West Point in . One of his classmates, Arch
Barrett, was the lead reorganization staffer for the House Armed Services Com-
mittee. During the fall of , Vuono and Witherspoon traded barbs as to whose
classmate on Capitol Hill was the more outrageous.26
One of Vuono’s deputies, Brig. Gen. Howard D. Graves Jr., instructed the
special review committee: “Let’s look at what the country needs. Let’s get out
of the green suit [a broader perspective than just the army].” The army might
have to sacrifice some of its special interests for the greater good. “You have to
rise above parochialism.”27 The committee followed Graves’s instructions even
after it was confronted by the antireform position papers prepared for Wein-
berger by the Cox Committee, which had “running throughout them . . . the
theme that the current organization worked well and should not be changed.”
The army committee took a bold stand in favor of major reform. It recommended
designating the JCS chairman as the principal military adviser and endorsed
many of the staff study’s major recommendations, only opposing creation of a
JCS vice chairman.28 Wickham did not accept his committee’s recommenda-
tions, but his testimony was more proreform than that of the other service
chiefs. The army committee “regarded that as a major victory.”29
The marine commandant, Gen. P. X. Kelley, offered the strongest criticism
of the reform effort. Although the SASC had expected this, Cohen and Nunn,
both of whom had collaborated with Kelley in the early s, had anticipated
a different response.
Kelley was then a three-star general serving as the first commander of the
Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF). President Carter had created that
force to protect American interests in the Persian Gulf region following the
 revolution in Iran. As a joint command, the RDJTF struggled for resources
and other support in a lopsided competition with powerful service bureaucra-

cies. The SASC had been heavily involved in Persian Gulf issues, due both to a
study group led by Nunn and a subcommittee chaired by Cohen. The commit-
tee took an active interest in Kelley’s plight, strongly supported his budget, and
jawboned with the services on his behalf. I had handled this work as the princi-
pal staffer for Persian Gulf issues.
In December, , Kelley headed one of the powerful service bureaucra-
cies against whom he had been pitted in a life-or-death struggle just years ear-
lier. He had then watched the services attempt to choke off a high-priority ini-
tiative—mandated by the commander in chief—because it threatened their
interests. Kelley acted as though his earlier frustrations with service power and
parochialism had never occurred. Now, as marine commandant, he was deter-
mined to maintain his service’s dominating power. Kelley’s position especially
disappointed Cohen, Nunn, and me.
Although Nunn felt that our reorganization effort had not been hurt in
any way by the chiefs’ appearance before the committee, the same could not be
said for Kelley. The marine commandant rejected the testimony prepared for
him by his staff and wrote his own. Although his emotional statement con-
tained numerous flaws in logic, Kelley passionately delivered his remarks.
The commandant appeared to be highly offended by the staff study. I knew
that he was hopping mad at me. He was so mad that eighteen months later
he still had not cooled off. In his remarks during his retirement ceremony on
June , , the commandant said: “When I take off the uniform of a Ma-
rine for the last time later this month, I will do so with some haunting con-
cerns. My first concern is with a growing attitude in the Congress which places
more credence in the views of staff members on matters dealing with na-
tional security than in the views of the service chiefs.”30 Colonel Terry Murray
later told me that Kelley had reorganization and me in mind when he penned
those words.
During his committee appearance, Kelley gave every indication that he was
raging inside. My long experience with the committee had taught me that emo-
tional witnesses generally do poorly. Kelley’s appearance added more evidence
to that observation. During questioning, Cohen and Nunn exposed flaws in the
marine’s logic.
In his opening statement, Kelley argued, “The burden must be on the crit-
ics to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that tangible improvements will result
from the recommendations for change.” Cohen retorted: “The suggestion was
made by General Kelley, that advocates of change . . . must carry the burden of
proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I do not think that anybody on this commit-
tee, no one that I am aware of, is accusing you of criminal misconduct. That
[proof beyond a reasonable doubt] is the standard we apply to criminal misbe-
havior, not to an opportunity to see whether improvements can be made.”31
Kelley’s face remained expressionless as Cohen made him look silly, but
the aides seated behind the commandant winced.
Cohen next raised the issue of the RDJTF. Kelley had argued that the chiefs
are able to subordinate the interests of their parent services to the larger inter-
ests of national defense, testifying, “I can find no significant shortcomings in
the ability of our current system to address strategy, resource, operational, and
organizational issues.”32
Cohen responded that Kelley’s statement “struck me as being somewhat
in contrast to the enormous difficulties you had as the first commander of the
Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force. Now in that particular case . . . there was
great difficulty, serious infighting, [and] the current system had some short-
comings in addressing strategy and resource and operational and organiza-
tional issues. So is this one of the situations in which the Joint Chiefs were able
to subordinate the interests of their parent services to the larger national
interest?”33
Kelley had no real answer. Cohen had nailed him. The Maine senator had
witnessed the infighting over the RDJTF, so Kelley could not deny it. The top
marine responded with incomprehensible chain-of-command gobbledygook.34
Cohen decided not to follow Kelley into the swamp of Pentagonese; he had made
his point. Kelley’s aides winced again.
Next it was Nunn’s turn to spar with the commandant. In an effort to im-
prove the quality of Joint Staff officers, one of the few changes in law resulting
from the Tower-Nichols confrontation in  required such officers to be
among the most outstanding. Kelley argued that this requirement was ill con-
sidered. To deride it, he used a number of rhetorical questions, including, “And
when a unit suffers casualties unnecessarily because it was not led by our ‘most
outstanding officers,’ to whom will their families turn for accountability?”35
Nunn looked at Kelley and said, “You do not want to suggest that this re-
quirement will mean the Marines will die because your best officers are on the
Joint Staff and not in command. . . . It seems to me we have got a real challenge
to either change the statute or you have got a challenge to get more outstand-
ing officers in the Marine Corps.” Nunn then covered his microphone and said
informally to his colleagues, “When the Marine Corps said they were looking
for ‘a few good men,’ I didn’t realize how few.”36 Even the antireform senators
chuckled. Kelley’s aides looked on crestfallen as the committee members
laughed at their boss.
Although I had sat in on hundreds of hearings, I had never before seen a
witness fail to realize when he was whipped and attempt to cut his losses. Yet
Kelley kept coming back with one foolish argument after another. Nunn and
Cohen hammered him unmercifully. The hearing signaled the bitter end of what
had been at one time a strong relationship between the general and key com-
mittee members.
The inability of the four service chiefs to rebut proreform arguments com-
pletely altered the dynamic of the hearings. The proreformers were no longer
on the defensive; the Pentagon was. This became clear at the next session on
December , when Deputy Secretary Taft, Army Secretary John O. Marsh Jr.,
Navy Secretary Lehman, and Air Force Under Secretary Edward C. “Pete”
Aldridge Jr. appeared. Nunn, Levin, Exon, Kennedy, and Thurmond kept the
witnesses off balance with tough questions. Among antireform members, only
Warner attended.
During this hearing, Nunn destroyed Lehman’s boast about how he alone
had succeeded in reducing bureaucracy. The senator dramatically thumbed
through the Pentagon telephone book’s organizational index and noted that
twenty-one pages were devoted to the OSD, JCS, and all defensewide and joint
activities, twenty-nine pages to the army, fifteen pages to the air force, six pages
to the Marine Corps, and fifty-two pages to the navy. Nunn recalled the scene:
“Lehman talked about [how] the navy didn’t have too much bureaucracy. It
was slimmed down, but everybody else had excessive staffs and layers. I just
started thumbing through the Pentagon telephone book. You should have seen
Lehman. He just went through the floor. It was so much fun.”37
Nunn finished his act by commenting, “Now I am not saying this is a sta-
tistically accurate survey of organizations, but it does indicate something.”
Lehman weakly quipped, “We have more telephones.”38
Five proreform witnesses appeared during the last two days of hearings.
Former defense secretary Mel Laird, former assistant defense secretary Lawrence
J. Korb, and former NSC staffer Phil Odeen appeared on December . Admiral
Crowe and General Rogers appeared separately the next day.
Crowe’s position at the end was designed to protect him. I had convinced
Goldwater and Nunn that we should leave Crowe out of this battle, which was
a no-win proposition for him. We knew that he supported many reorganiza-
tion ideas, but he would also play a critical role in implementing any enacted
reforms. To draw him out and force him to openly oppose his colleagues, espe-
cially the chiefs, would be shortsighted. I had argued that many witnesses could
present and defend proreform perspectives, but only Crowe would potentially
play a key role in making the reforms work. Nunn’s questions avoided the
barnburner issues, and the admiral escaped without any obvious damage.
Rogers told me a few days before his appearance that he could not get his
opening statement approved by the Pentagon. “Just have the chairman ask me
a broad question,” he said, “and I’ll give my opening statement as the answer.”
Warner chaired the hearing, and Rogers proceeded to give his statement when
Warner gave him an opening. In listing actions Congress should take, the gen-
eral said, “The first thing is to eliminate the service secretaries.”39
Almost swallowing his tongue, Warner garbled, “I beg your pardon?”
After bantering about how Rogers’s recommendation had grabbed the
former navy secretary’s attention, Nunn inquired: “General, may I ask you for
one little clarification, to ease Senator Warner’s mind. You would not make
that retroactive, would you?”40
After the last hearing, Rick Finn and I turned our attention to drafting a reor-
ganization bill. Goldwater and Nunn intended it to be the SASC’s first item of
business in the new year. We began with a series of meetings with the two
senators, following Goldwater’s return from Arizona on December , to get
their approval of our approach and specific provisions. Just before the Christ-
mas holidays, Goldwater and Nunn approved a long list of conceptual changes
to defense organization. By mid-January, Finn and I had translated these into a
draft bill. On January  we met with General Jones, Bill Brehm, John Kester,
and Phil Odeen to review the draft bill.41 These four, later joined by General
Gorman, served as the staff’s informal advisers throughout .
In January I began to assess in detail where the reorganization votes might
lie in the committee. Some votes were easy to predict, but other members had
carefully guarded their views. The situation on the Republican side did not look
good: Goldwater and Cohen were the only certain supporters, and Thurmond
was the only other Republican leaning in support. Warner, Wilson, Denton,
and Gramm were solidly against reorganization. I put Humphrey, Quayle, and
East in the leaning against category. With only two or three favorable GOP votes,
Nunn’s ability to corral his Democratic colleagues would be critical.
Nunn refrained from pursuing committee Democrats for much longer than
the staff thought was advisable. Staffers worry excessively about their issues
and often second-guess the political timing of members. Smith, Finn, and I
were no exception to this rule. We fretted about Nunn’s delay in putting the
strong arm on his colleagues. Antireform agents were lobbying members. We
needed to get firm commitments before those provocateurs undermined our
position.
Finally, Nunn made his move. With Smith, Finn, and me in attendance,
Nunn telephoned each committee Democrat and asked for his complete sup-
port. When the ranking Democrat was finished, he had a total of seven com-
mitted votes. Only Stennis and Glenn would be voting against reorganization.
With nineteen senators on the committee, Thurmond’s position became
pivotal. With him on their side, Goldwater and Nunn would start the bill’s
markup with a one-vote margin in favor. If Thurmond cast his vote in the other
direction, reorganization could be dealt a severe—even possibly a fatal—blow.
“Maybe you should get together with Senator Thurmond,” I said to Goldwater,
“and shore him up on this issue.” The chairman answered, “Don’t worry about
Thurmond; he’ll be there when we need him.” Goldwater later explained their
close relationship: “I got Strom Thurmond to become a Republican—that’s years
and years ago. His state voted for me for president, and that’s when he changed
and became a Republican. We’ve always gotten along. I wasn’t the least bit
worried about him.”42 Despite Goldwater’s confidence, I worried.
Ken Johnson, Thurmond’s staffer, strongly supported reorganization. De-
spite heavy flak, the Citadel graduate and former Special Forces officer con-
tinuously urged his boss to support Goldwater and Nunn. He also worked hard
to inform Thurmond on these complex issues. Given the importance of
Thurmond’s vote, Johnson’s role became critical.
On January , six days before the markup’s start, Goldwater personally
delivered copies of the draft bill to Weinberger and Crowe and asked for their
comments. In a cover letter, he and Nunn wrote: “We have taken the unusual
step of providing markup materials to you because of the importance of the
issues addressed and the desire to have the best advice available before the com-
mittee acts.” The senators requested that the secretary and admiral not distrib-
ute copies outside their offices.43 Hoping to avoid intense lobbying by the entire
Pentagon, Goldwater wanted all other copies to remain inside the committee.
But even before he could make his deliveries, opposing senators leaked the bill
to military allies. Copies were soon circulating throughout the Pentagon, where
they caused major heartburn.
Also on January , Goldwater and Nunn issued a press release with a
seven-page summary of the draft bill’s provisions. The senators said they had
“directed the staff to draft a bill that incorporated, as much as possible, the con-
sensus views that had emerged during the committee’s lengthy examination.”
Still maintaining maneuvering room, they added, “Although we may not agree
with every provision of the draft bill, we do believe that it represents an excel-
lent starting point for the committee’s consideration.”44
In drafting the bill, the staff, with the approval of Goldwater and Nunn,
dropped five of the seven extreme recommendations advanced in the staff study,
including proposals to disestablish the JCS and replace it with a JMAC. Goldwater
and Nunn believed that the extreme recommendations had served their pur-
pose. Opponents had spent several months trying to shoot them down, espe-
cially the one to disband the JCS. Now Goldwater and Nunn could appear states-
men-like, earn goodwill with opponents, and undercut antireform arguments
by dropping the extreme proposals. “Goldwater and I are going to ride in on
white horses and save the republic from the staff,” said Nunn.
The draft’s two remaining extreme recommendations would create three
mission-oriented under secretaries of defense and merge the civilian secretari-
ats and military headquarters staffs in the military departments. We believed
in these ideas, and testimony had revealed the need for mission integration. Yet
support for these recommendations was limited; they were near the top of the
list of negotiating bait.
Goldwater and Nunn were firmly committed to other major provisions of
the draft bill, including designating the JCS chairman as the principal military
33. Senators Strom Thurmond and Sam Nunn.

(Sam Nunn Archives, Emory University.)
adviser, assigning duties then performed by the JCS to the chairman, creating a
JCS vice chairman and designating him the second-ranking officer, assigning
the vice chairman the duty of serving as acting chairman in the chairman’s
absence, authorizing the chairman to manage the Joint Staff and prescribe its
procedures, specifying that the chain of command—unless otherwise directed
by the president—runs from the president to the secretary of defense to the com-
batant commanders, strengthening the authority of combatant commanders
and giving them full operational command over assigned forces, specifying the
responsibility of the service secretaries to the secretary of defense, making con-
sistent the statutes governing the military departments, reducing the size of head-
quarters staffs, and repealing various congressional reporting requirements.
Nowhere in the Pentagon was the alarm over the draft bill greater than in
the navy, which sent its analysis of the bill to all interested parties. On January
, Lehman fired similar letters to Vice President Bush, Secretary Weinberger,
and Vice Admiral Poindexter.45 His letter to Weinberger read: “Here is my first
cut at the Goldwater-Locher-Dave Jones Bill. It is even worse than before. It is a
blatant indictment of all that we have done these last five years. In substance it
is simply an updated return to McNamara. What supreme irony that Goldwater
has become the unwitting tool of the liberal ‘whiz-fogies.’”
In Bush’s letter, Lehman added that the bill “is heavily directed against the
Navy CNO and SecNav.”
A few days after receiving the draft bill, Crowe called me with an invita-
tion for Goldwater and Nunn to meet with the JCS on February , the eve of
the start of the markup sessions. The vehemence of the services’ reaction to
the draft bill worried the admiral. He feared that the legislation would tear the
fabric of the JCS by going too far too fast. Crowe wanted Goldwater and Nunn
to hear the white-hot responses pouring forth from the Pentagon’s power
corridors.
I told Crowe that I expected Goldwater and Nunn to accept his invitation.
The two senators had not given up hope that the chiefs would cooperate with
their reform efforts. Their attempts to gain that cooperation had constantly been
rebuffed, but they continued to hold out the olive branch. I also told Crowe that
the two senators were certain to want their staffers to accompany them. Crowe
said that would not be a problem.
On the day of the meeting, Crowe called me to change the terms of the
invitation. The chiefs now believed that other SASC members, especially bill
opponents, should also attend. Furthermore, the chiefs did not want staffers
there. Before I could relay this information to Goldwater, his office received calls
from John Warner, Jeremiah Denton, and Phil Gramm—then among the
staunchest Republican opponents—indicating that they understood that they
had been invited to meet with the JCS and wanting the details.
The chiefs’ tactics were clear. They wanted to stack the deck against the
two senators. Goldwater was no fool. He was not about to face the chiefs with
his Republican colleagues sniping from behind and without staff support to
handle questions on the bill’s details. The chiefs were also angling to drive a
wedge between the two senators and their staff. Because the proposed legisla-
tion had been termed a “staff draft,” the chiefs hoped that Goldwater and Nunn
were not committed to it and would abandon it in the face of fierce Pentagon
opposition.
After conferring with Nunn, Goldwater ended the dispute. If the chiefs
wanted this meeting, it would be on the two senators’ terms: no other mem-
bers were to be invited, and the three staffers—Finn, Smith, and I—who had
drafted the legislation would be present. His Republican colleagues complained
bitterly, but Goldwater was unyielding.
The two leaders met with the JCS on the evening of February , .
That explosive session removed all doubt from Goldwater’s and Nunn’s minds
about the intensity of the fight they would face in the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
The Packard Commission Reinforces 391
CHAPTER 21
The Packard Commission

Reinforces
A seasonable reinforcement renders the success
of a battle certain, because the enemy will always
imagine it stronger than it really is,
and lose courage accordingly.
—Napoleon
“T here has been nothing but praise from members of my committee . . . for
the obvious competent way in which you are handling your assignment,”
Senator Goldwater wrote in a letter to David Packard, chairman of the Packard
Commission, on September , . “It didn’t come as a surprise to me be-
cause, in the years that I have known you, that has been the outstanding fea-
ture you possess—you get the job done. I thank you for this.” He ended with:
“Let’s keep in touch. Getting this military in the shape to defend our country, to
me, Dave, is the only thing of importance we have left to do.”1
Six days earlier, eight of the nine senators on Goldwater and Nunn’s Task
Force on Defense Organization had held a breakfast meeting with Packard and
ten others from the sixteen-member commission. Congressmen Les Aspin, Bill
Dickinson, and Bill Nichols attended as well. Frank exchanges at the meeting
convinced Goldwater and Nunn that Packard and his colleagues were serious
about their work and that the SASC could look forward to a cooperative rela-
tionship with the commission. Packard concluded the meeting by agreeing “that
it is time to do something fundamental and that Congress and the commission

must keep in communication.”2
Strong personal relationships enhanced communication between the com-
mission and the SASC. Commissioner Nick Brady had been a Republican SASC
member in , and R. James Woolsey had served as the committee’s general
counsel from  to . Commissioner William J. Perry had maintained a
close relationship with Nunn since Perry’s service as under secretary of de-
fense for research and engineering during the Carter administration. The par-
ticipation of Brady and Gen. Paul Gorman in the Fort A. P. Hill retreat further
strengthened SASC-commission ties.
Two commission staffers—Staff Director Rhett Dawson and Robert S. “Steve”
Dotson—also had strong SASC ties. Dawson, who had spent six years on the
SASC’s Republican staff, served as Tower’s minority staff director and his first
majority staff director. In the latter capacity, he had been my boss for two years.
He was also responsible for Tower offering me a position on the Republican staff
after the  elections. We remained close friends after Dawson departed the
committee staff in late . After Packard selected him to head the staff, Dawson
and I met four times in July and August to discuss reorganization.
Dotson, a SASC Democratic staffer in the late s and early s, had
been appointed to the commission staff to represent the Office of Management
and Budget. He graduated from the Air Force Academy and Harvard Business
School. Before Dotson left the committee, he and I often discussed the Pentagon’s
organizational problems. Our common business school education gave us a
similar perspective.
Combined with the strong rapport among Packard, Goldwater, and Nunn,
these relationships eased discussions. Throughout this dialogue, one common
agenda united the commission and the SASC: achieving changes that would
be best for the nation’s security. There was never a hint of executive-legislative
competition, partisan politics, or concern about who got the credit. The quality
and openness of SASC discussions with the Packard Commission were refresh-
ing after years of haggling with Pentagon officials.
The Packard Commission was composed of highly qualified businessmen,
academics, and former officials. Usually, presidential commissions are peopled
with members who are near the end of their career and who do not anticipate
subsequent government appointments. This was not the case for six Packard
Commissioners. Frank Carlucci went on to serve as national security adviser
and then defense secretary in the last years of the Reagan administration. Dur-
ing the Bush presidency, retired lieutenant general Brent Scowcroft reprised
the role of national security adviser he played for President Ford. Brady served
as Bush’s treasury secretary, and Carla A. Hills, a former secretary of housing
and urban development, was his U.S. trade representative. President Clinton
later appointed Perry as deputy defense secretary and then secretary, and
Woolsey served as Clinton’s director of central intelligence.
Executive Order , dated July , , instructed the commission to “first
devote its attention to the procedures and activities of the department associ-
ated with the procurement of military equipment and material.” President
Reagan requested a report on this politically troubling area by the end of De-
cember. Given the tight deadline, the commission’s August and September
meetings focused on acquisition reform. In its first session on August , all
sixteen commissioners met with Secretary Weinberger. Dawson recalled the
outcome: “Each commissioner, including Frank Carlucci, was absolutely crest-
fallen and stunned by Weinberger’s extraordinarily defensive performance. They
were really discouraged.”3
The commission’s initial session on organization did not occur until Octo-
ber , when Goldwater, Nunn, and I briefed the SASC staff study. This delay
permitted the commission to use the study as a principal resource. Two of the
commission’s five panels addressed the reorganization issues being considered
by Congress. The Organization Issues Panel, headed by Gorman, focused on
the most controversial issues: those involving the Joint Chiefs of Staff and uni-
fied commands. The Strategy and Resource Planning Panel, chaired by
Scowcroft, addressed mechanisms for determining military force structure,
weapons, and budgets. Two other panels worked exclusively on acquisition prob-
lems, and the fifth panel studied implementation.4
A powerful, activist, energetic chairman, Packard controlled the com-
mission’s agenda and work. David Berteau, recruited from the Pentagon to serve
as the commission’s executive secretary, later commented: “Packard drove the
meetings. He drove the staff. He drove the whole process. . . . It’s rare to have
somebody of Packard’s stature spend that much time on commission work and
to do it as constructively as Packard did. He was also unique in the degree to
which he tried to navigate that narrow space among the White House, Penta-
gon, and Capitol Hill and do it in such a way that the commission successfully
participated and cooperated with all three.”5
According to Berteau, Packard’s first discussion with the staff communi-
cated that he had set his sights on far-reaching reforms: “He did not want to
put boundaries around alternatives or recommendations. There were no con-
straints. It was clear from the beginning that the commission would be serious
about reform.”
Five other commissioners—Brady, Louis W. Cabot, Admiral Holloway,
Charles J. Pilliod Jr., and General Barrow—joined Gorman on the Organization
Issues Panel. Packard probably selected Gorman to head the panel because he
had “been more vocal on reorganization than others during the early proceed-
ings.” For years, Gorman had felt that the JCS system “left much to be desired.”
As the three-star assistant to General Jones, Gorman had been involved in re-
organization from the beginning and had often written and lectured on the
subject. Not only did Gorman’s long discussions with Jones influence his think-
ing, but his “own struggles as a CINC,” about which he spoke during the Fort
A. P. Hill retreat, had educated him on organization problems.6
Vietnam, where Gorman said he had “focused six years of my life,” played
an important role as well. He had commanded a battalion and a brigade in that
conflict, served as a division operations officer, worked as special assistant to
the secretary of defense for counterinsurgency, and served as a member of the
U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks, where he worked for General Goodpaster.
During this period, Gorman found organizational arrangements “profession-
ally perplexing.” He recalled: “My Vietnam experiences directly contributed to
my puzzlement. It was a real education on our military’s organizational and
procedural shortcomings.”
As the retired four-star army general began his commission work, he found
himself in agreement with the problems identified in the SASC staff report and
Goldwater’s and Nunn’s notions on how to fix them that he had heard dis-
cussed at Fort A. P. Hill. He called that gathering “an exceptional event,” and
said: “I was extraordinarily favorably impressed by the openness and candor of
the members. I thought that the discussion was very elevated.”
On November , , the day Weinberger testified on the SASC staff study,
Packard and Gorman gave Goldwater and Nunn a status report on the com-
mission’s work. The senators and commissioners also discussed the timing of
their respective work. Goldwater and Nunn then thought that their committee
would report a reorganization bill not later than mid-February. With an in-
terim commission report on management and organization due at the end of
March, a staff memorandum to Goldwater and Nunn advised, “We believe that
there is some flexibility in the February-March time period for you to adjust the
schedule to await inputs from the Packard Commission.”7 This possibility be-
came more viable when the commission subsequently decided to include the in-
terim management and organization report in a comprehensive interim report
to be released on February .
Nunn later described his impression from this meeting and other conversa-
tions with Packard: “He told us they were going to concentrate on procurement
and wanted to follow what we were doing on reorganization. The commission
would not necessarily take what we had done, but it was clear that they wanted
us to continue to lead and that they were going to try to be positive on reorga-
nization.”8
Dawson said that Packard gave priority to his meetings with SASC and
HASC leaders because “he understood the importance of the Hill in making
reforms happen.” Of the Goldwater-Packard rapport, Dawson explained:
“Packard played to his and Goldwater’s mutual disdain for Cap Weinberger and
Will Taft. Packard did not regard Weinberger as his equal or somebody who
knew much about the military. He thought Weinberger had made a hash of
defense acquisition and didn’t know how to run the department.”9
A potential setback for reorganization arose with Bud McFarlane’s sudden

resignation as national security adviser on December . His departure created
unease among Senate reformers. Given McFarlane’s central role in establish-
ing the Packard Commission and his support for reorganization, his absence
could prove troubling. McFarlane’s replacement, Vice Admiral Poindexter, ap-
peared supportive, but earlier concerns about his pronavy sentiments lingered.
Gorman said that Packard had definite ideas on reorganization: “Dave was
convinced that the only way to solve acquisition problems—the fundamental
deficiency confronting the commission—was to do away with the military de-
partments and truly unify the armed forces. His arguments were very persua-
sive. He was a man ahead of his time. There was a lot of talk about the Cana-
dian model [only one military service]. This thrust thoroughly alarmed
commissioners like Barrow and Holloway and many others. Our panel had a
real bear by the tail, and his name was Dave Packard.”10
Moreover, said Gorman:
Because of Dave’s position, we had to refer the Organization Panel’s

issues to the commission as a whole. The person who made the big differ-
ence in that debate was Navy Secretary John Lehman. In a lengthy ses-
sion with the commission on December 0, he went through a detailed
recitation of cases where he, as Navy secretary, had been able to inter-
vene in acquisition processes gone sour, where there had been malfea-
sance in office or fumbling on the part of a program manager. Lehman
went through instances—chapter and verse, names, places, dates—of
actions that were close to criminal and programs that were misconceived
from the beginning, but had acquired an invulnerability to correction,
where he had acted. He cited a number of instances where he had been
able to initiate worthwhile programs that the uniformed Navy had
rejected.
Lehman felt very strongly that the service secretary had a real and
important role to play and that the department needed the secretary for
oversight and a guarantee of probity among political appointees and con-
tractors. His forceful presentation foreclosed Dave Packard’s efforts to get
his own ideas into the final report. Lehman succeeded by creating a broad
coalition among the commissioners that said, “No, no, Dave, that’s too
far. We don’t want to come out for that.”
After the commission rejected Packard’s ideas, it found itself in agreement

with many congressional proposals. According to Gorman, the “Commission-
ers interpreted what Goldwater and Nunn had put forward as being congruent
with the notions they had been discussing.”11 By December, the commission
was clearly “entertaining organizational reforms closely akin to those under

serious discussion on Capitol Hill.”12
Of the commission’s process for making final decisions on its interim re-
port, Berteau said: “It was the sixteen commissioners sitting around, hashing
this out, piece-by-piece, item-by-item. Everybody was engaged. . . . There was a
pretty strong emphasis on consensus, not unanimity, but ‘Let’s keep going un-
til we reach agreement that this is the right thing to do and give everybody the
chance to raise objections and voice concerns, and if we can’t resolve them,
we’ll keep plugging at it.’” Gorman identified Carlucci, Woolsey, and Scowcroft
as having significant influence on commission deliberations.13
According to Dawson, it was clear in early January, , “after Holloway
threw in the towel,” that the commission would issue heavily proreform re-
ports. “The process was a lot less difficult than I would have thought given our
cast of characters,” said Dawson. “Frankly, I was surprised that Holloway gave
in as early as he did. I thought there would have been a minority report, which
would have produced the serious issue of a divided commission.”14
Early in the commission’s work, the NSC staff, especially Mike Donley, began to
understand that the commission’s recommendations might produce changes
that would “equal the importance” of President Eisenhower’s  initiatives.15
In November, Donley traveled to the Eisenhower Library in Kansas to research
the Eisenhower administration’s work.
Information from Donley’s trip sparked the commission’s interest in the
 reorganization act. Packard asked Gorman to interview his former boss,
General Goodpaster, who had been Eisenhower’s staff secretary. Goodpaster told
his interviewers:
The degree of command exercised by unified commanders today is less

than that desired for them by President Eisenhower . . . “operational com-
mand” with its present limitations falls far short of his intent. . . . [T]he
service chiefs were to spend the bulk of their time and effort attending to
duties as corporate members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with most of the
day-to-day running of the services left to the service vice chiefs.
Contrary to popular impressions today, command arrangements dur-
ing World War II also had problems. As supreme commander, Allied Expe-
ditionary Force in World War II, General Eisenhower insisted on command
of naval and air corps units for the Normandy invasion. He told General
Marshall that he could not continue as supreme commander otherwise.16
Packard, recalling the commission’s interest in Eisenhower’s initiatives,

said: “We had a fairly good feeling of what he [Eisenhower] wanted to do and
what he did not get done. That had an influence on what we tried to do.”17
Donley said he made his trip to the Eisenhower Library for three reasons.
First, he felt that “Reagan would probably resonate with Eisenhower as a good
example for how to address reorganization.” Second, Donley believed that pro-
viding the history of Eisenhower’s role would “reinforce with Reagan that he
had every right and reason to be interested in what was going on” and “make
sure that he was personally involved.” Last, he wanted to “get a handle on how
Eisenhower bureaucratically handled reorganization.”18
Poindexter sent the results of Donley’s research to Reagan in a memoran-
dum just before the commission submitted its February interim report. The
memorandum favorably compared the Packard Commission’s recommenda-
tions with Eisenhower’s initiatives and drew other parallels. One parallel noted
that Eisenhower also found his Pentagon working group “too eager to prove
that things were perfect as they were.”19
The memorandum did point out one major difference: “Ike faced a Con-
gress that was opposed to change; today, it is Congress that is pushing for more
extensive and detailed changes in defense management and organization. . . .
So, where the Eisenhower initiatives were intended to push Congress into do-
ing something they would otherwise resist, we hope to use the Packard Com-
mission initiatives as a substitute for the more objectionable legislation being
forcefully advanced by Congress.”
The memorandum concluded:
There are many parallels between the recommendations of the Packard

Commission and the Eisenhower initiatives of . The commission’s
conclusions are consistent with the historical trend of enhancing the
authority of the secretary of defense and JCS as a means of improving
the integration of the military departments in support of strategic plans,
while still maintaining the integrity of the individual services and their
responsibility for program execution. . . . While Packard’s recommenda-
tions are significant, and to some may appear as a departure from cur-
rent practice, they in fact represent a realignment back to the original
intent of the National Security Act, which President Eisenhower tried so
hard to implement.
Packard met with Goldwater and Nunn on February  to brief them on the
planned contents of the interim report, which was issued on February . He
said the commission would recommend greater authority for the unified com-
manders, more emphasis on missions, stronger representation in the JCS for
the unified commanders, designation of the JCS chairman as principal military
adviser, and creation of a JCS vice chairman. Packard noted that the commis-
sion would diverge from Goldwater and Nunn’s thinking on the vice chairman’s
rank and role. He said a majority of commissioners favored making the service
chiefs more senior than the vice chairman and retaining the system of rotat-
ing the acting chairman duty among the service chiefs. Packard expressed his
private opinion that the vice chairman should be the second-ranking officer.
At the senators’ request, he agreed to reopen the vice chairman issue because
the Senate and House bills “may be identical [on this issue] and it could be a
close vote and veto-able.”20
A commission-SASC dialogue on the vice-chairman issue continued for
several weeks, especially between Arnold Punaro, Woolsey, and Dawson. On
February , responding to the commission’s request, Goldwater and Nunn
sent Packard a four-page letter presenting the views of a “bipartisan majority”
of SASC members on the issue. The letter stated that “arguments have con-
vinced us that the most important officer in our armed forces—the only civil-
ian or military official in the U.S. Government without a deputy—should finally
be given a ‘true’ deputy.”21
Whatever the outcome of the commission’s reconsideration of its vice-
chairman recommendations, the outline of its interim report pleased Goldwater
and Nunn. They did not expect the report to offer new arguments or ideas. Given
its three years of reorganization work, the SASC’s research, analyses, and de-
bates were far more advanced than the commission’s. Instead, the senators’
satisfaction derived from thoughts of the report’s political impact. It would de-
liver a devastating blow to administration antireformers and complicate their
efforts to stonewall reform proposals.
Goldwater and Nunn had known privately for several months that they
had a potentially powerful ally in the Packard Commission. In just three weeks,
that ally was scheduled to publicly state its proreform views. Although uncer-
tainty remained about the commission’s ability to resist political pressure, the
clarity of its message, and White House and Pentagon reactions, Goldwater
and Nunn looked forward to timely political reinforcement by the Packard Com-
mission.
The Decisive Battle 399
CHAPTER 22
The Decisive Battle
I propose to fight it out on this line,
if it takes all summer.
—Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, dispatch from
Spotsylvania Courthouse, May 11, 1864
A decisive battle in American military history began on the morning of

February , . It was not a conflict of arms, but a momentous clash
of ideas and interests in a Senate hearing room. The adversaries were not armed
with weapons, but with concepts, statutes, and amendments. This battle did
not directly threaten anyone’s life, but its outcome—depending on whether
deeply entrenched, outmoded traditions and practices were reformed or sus-
tained—could save or cost untold lives of American soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines.
At  A.M. that day, the Senate Armed Services Committee initiated its long-
awaited markup of a fifty-six-page defense reorganization bill. Earlier in the
morning, the Pentagon delivered eight letters to the committee, one each from
Admiral Crowe, the three service secretaries, and the four service chiefs. The
letter from Crowe was reasonably argued, like the one received the night before
from Secretary Weinberger after Senators Goldwater and Nunn met with the
JCS. The letters from the seven service officials were quarrelsome and conten-
tious. Perhaps seeking to neutralize Goldwater’s and Nunn’s strong defense
credentials, they all took the line that the bill reflected only the views of head-
strong staff and not those of the SASC leadership.
Navy Secretary Lehman’s letter ranked as the most bellicose. “I am sur-
prised and disappointed that the serious effort that the service secretaries and
the service chiefs devoted to your hearings seems to have largely been ignored
in the staff effort,” he complained. After lauding Weinberger’s management
changes, Lehman wrote that the staff bill “charts a return to the discredited
philosophy that led to the overcentralized bureaucracy we inherited in .”1
Given the importance of the votes of the committee’s nine Democrats, that
slap at the Carter administration was ill considered.
Lehman added that the draft bill’s proposed strengthening of the unified
commanders “would make a hash of our defense structure.” Five other service
letters also strongly criticized increasing the authority of unified commanders.
Only the air force chief, General Gabriel, did not object to those provisions. By
attacking reforms that were supported by overwhelming evidence and a siz-
able majority of the committee, service officials undermined their credibility.
According to the navy secretary, the staff draft would “make the offices of
the service secretary and service chief essentially ceremonial. In place of the
former would be five CINC pro-consuls freed from civilian control; and in place
of the latter, one single voice (with deputy) to provide military advice to the
president, NSC, secretary of defense and Congress.”
Lehman concluded by urging the committee members “to reject the staff
draft, and consider true reform as recommended to you by Secretary Weinberger
last year. We need less bureaucracy, not more; fewer bureaucratic layers, not
more; less congressional micromanagement, not more; and more decentrali-
zation and accountability rather than a return to the ‘whiz-kid’ theories con-
tained in your staff draft.”
The marine commandant’s letter matched Lehman’s tough language. Gen-
eral Kelley repeated much of what he had told Goldwater and Nunn the night
before, including: “If the ‘draft bill’ were to be enacted in its current form it
would result in a significant degradation in the efficiency and effectiveness of
the defense establishment—to the point where I would have deep concerns for
the future security of the United States. In this regard, I know of no document
which has concerned me more in my  years of uniformed service to my
country.”2
General Kelley said that he “was extremely disappointed by the obvious
lack of balance and objectivity [in] the -page staff report.” He accused the
authors of the staff-drafted bill of having “been unfaithful to your [Goldwater
and Nunn’s] direction and have placed more emphasis on their own precon-
ceived opinions than on ‘consensus views.’” The commandant complained that
“The ‘draft bill’ virtually destroys the corporate nature of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff,” and attacked General Jones by observing: “I know of only one former
chairman who would support this chapter of the ‘draft bill’ as written, and his
views must be carefully weighed against his performance while in office.” He
added that his own “views on the vice chairman being senior to the Joint Chiefs
of Staff are a matter of record: I am strenuously opposed! Moreover, the Joint
Staff is currently a viable and efficient organization. I implore your indulgence

to keep it that way.”
Kelley castigated the proposed strengthening of the unified commanders,
arguing: “In my professional view, this chapter of the ‘draft bill’ would create
chaos between the duties and responsibilities of the service chiefs and those of
the CINCs. It provides a complex, unworkable solution to an ill-defined prob-
lem. This is an exceptionally dangerous chapter, one which has resulted from
little, if any, dialog. It will create more disharmony than jointness.” Of the draft
bill’s changes to military department statutes, Kelley wrote, “My opinion is that
these proposals are alien to good logic and common sense, and the only ‘con-
sensus’ is among the drafters themselves!”
After noting that his comments did not represent all of his concerns, the
commandant concluded, “I strongly urge you to consider additional hearings
to achieve conscious addressal of these vital issues.”
The CNO, Admiral Watkins, wrote: “I believe our nation would surely be
standing into shoal water, with severe damage predictable, if we were to follow
the course charted for us in the current draft bill now before your committee.
In short, I consider the bill as drafted to be terribly flawed and certainly not in
the best interests of national security.”3
The letters from the army and air force secretaries and chiefs of staff were
also critical, but they were less strident.
All nineteen SASC members were present for the decisive battle’s opening
moments. Ideologically, the committee tilted heavily to the political right. All
Republicans were conservatives, except for Cohen, who was a moderate. Greater
diversity was found on the Democratic side, where four conservatives outnum-
bered liberals by only one, and two moderates—Bingaman and Dixon—occu-
pied the pivotal middle ground.
Reorganization was unlikely to be sorted out on the basis of ideology. The
strength of the senators’ connections to various services and their party affili-
ation would play more significant roles. Thirteen members had served in the
military: four in the army, two in the air force, three in the navy, and four in the
marines. Some members attached little importance to these previous relation-
ships while others maintained strong ties. Still others maintained close con-
nections with the services for entirely different reasons. For example, John
Stennis tilted toward the navy because the Pascagoula Shipyard ranked as
Mississippi’s largest employer. Party affiliation prompted some Republican sena-
tors to defend the administration and Pentagon.
As the markup session began, Goldwater set the historical context: “The
committee’s action continues an evolutionary trend that began shortly after
the Spanish-American War.” He also established a Constitutional context, call-
ing the work “a solemn responsibility assigned by the Constitution to the Con-
gress.” He added, “We have neglected this important responsibility for too long.
34. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee gather in the main
hearing room used for markup of the reorganization bill on June 18, 1986.
Seated (left to right): Gramm, Denton, Wilson, East, Quayle, Humphrey,
Warner, Thurmond, Goldwater, Stennis, Levin, Kennedy, Bingaman,
Dixon, and Glenn. Cohen and Nunn are absent. Standing
(left to right): McGovern and Punaro. (U.S. Senate photo.)
Many of the problems that we now seek to solve have been evident for decades.”
The chairman then urged the committee to “rise above narrow interests and
emphasize genuine national security interests. This has been a problem for the
Congress in the past. Narrow interests with strong constituencies have blocked
or weakened necessary reforms.”4
Goldwater announced that “the committee will conduct the markup in a
deliberate and comprehensive manner. . . . We want to hear all points of view
and carefully consider all aspects of these important decisions. We must exer-
cise caution in mandating changes in the U.S. military establishment. At the
same time, we must not shy away from correcting clearly identified deficiencies
and from fulfilling our Constitutional responsibilities.”
The chairman added: “I’d like to make one personal point. I know that some
senior Pentagon officials have been opposing what I am trying to do by telling
senators that this is not my initiative. Instead, I am supposed to just be going
along with the staff and other senators. Frankly, these lies make me mad as hell!
I have been deeply involved in this project from the outset. I have read every
word of the staff report and the bill. I have attended every hearing, except when
I had to be in Arizona. So I know these issues and I want to fix these problems.”
In his opening statement, Nunn noted “that we have had nearly forty years
of experience with the current arrangements. We have seen these arrange-
ments in action and have many concrete examples of their shortcomings.”
Referencing the SASC’s extensive reorganization work, Nunn said, “I do not
know of any other set of issues since I joined the committee over thirteen years
ago that the committee has been better prepared to address.”5
Following the two leaders’ presentations, each member made an opening
statement outlining his starting position. These statements and readings from
the Pentagon letters consumed the morning. By noon it was clear that the SASC
was bitterly divided, with strongly held positions on both sides.
The morning session also featured a squabble over whether the committee
would conduct the markup in open or closed sessions. Antireformers wanted
the sessions open to the public, believing that the committee would be more
cautious under the Pentagon’s glare. Goldwater and Nunn knew the impor-
tance of proceeding in closed sessions and gained approval for doing so. Their
arguments centered on the need to discuss classified information, which would
happen seldom, if ever, during consideration of this bill.
Just before the end of the morning session, a message from Ben Schemmer,
editor of the Armed Forces Journal, informed Gerry Smith of Goldwater’s staff
that the navy had established a “crisis management center on DoD reorganiza-
tion.” Schemmer also provided the center’s telephone number.6 The center’s
purported mission was to defeat the legislation, an activity of questionable le-
gality. With mischief in his eye, Goldwater grabbed Smith and me and said,
“Let’s find out what this is all about.”
Back in his office, Goldwater said, “I’m going to call this office and see what
the Navy’s up to.” Smith offered to place the call, but the senator insisted on
dialing it. When his call was answered, Smith and I saw a Goldwater we had
never seen before: an actor. Disguising his voice, Goldwater asked the secretary
who answered, “Is this the Navy office that is working to defeat the reorganiza-
tion legislation?” When she said, “Yes,” he inquired who worked there. She
answered, “Captain Cohen, and there is a Lieutenant Colonel Dole, and a Ma-
jor Robert Roach.”7 Goldwater repeated the names as he wrote them down.
Goldwater said he wanted to help and asked if she had an assignment for
him. She said she did not have one at the moment, but if he would leave his
name and number, the office would get right back to him.
Goldwater said he would have to call back later and thanked her. As he
hung up, the senator said, “Can you believe that? They’re not supposed to lobby
Congress on legislation. I can’t wait to tell the committee.” At the start of
the afternoon session, the chairman took great delight in recounting his
telephone call.
After the committee adopted the draft bill as the basis for amendment,
Goldwater asked me to give an overview briefing. This led to what the chair-
man called “a good discussion of a number of broad issues” that consumed the
entire afternoon.8
The following afternoon, Goldwater—sensing that work on the bill would
be highly confrontational and time-consuming—decided he did not want other
SASC sessions competing with the markup: “I am reaffirming, after consulting
with Senator Nunn, my direction that no other full committee or subcommit-
tee hearings be scheduled until we finish this markup.” Goldwater also noted
that it might not be possible to finish in three days: “We will continue the mark-
ups mornings and afternoons every day if it takes one week, two weeks, or
three weeks to finish.” He also conveyed his determination: “I want everyone
in this room to understand that I will not be deflected or sidetracked in this
effort even if I get a letter a day from everyone in the Pentagon.”
In a campaign organized by the Pentagon, military and veterans associa-
tions, such as the Reserve Officers Association and National Guard Association,
were bombarding Goldwater with letters objecting to the bill. The chairman
fired off a tough response to each letter and set up a meeting for me to brief the
associations.
Goldwater and Nunn had decided to address unified command reforms first
because there was wider support for them. When Goldwater opened the floor
for the consideration of changes, Warner presented a package of thirteen amend-
ments. The third-ranking Republican had accepted the role of opposition leader.
Although he had tried to stay out of the reorganization battle as long as possible,
the pressure for Warner to take the lead eventually became overwhelming. The
pressure came from his status as a former navy secretary, former marine, and
senator from Virginia, a state with a powerful navy lobby. Nevertheless, Warner
appeared uncomfortable with the intellectual arguments of the antireform
coalition. Nunn later said, “Warner always was concerned, I think, in his heart
of hearts, that he wasn’t on the right track basically taking the Navy’s line.”9
Nevertheless, the Virginia senator threw himself full force into the role of
opposition leader.
As the committee considered Warner’s amendments, my role was to as-
sess the impact of each and begin a discussion of its advantages and disadvan-
tages. I also offered recommendations as to what action the committee should
take. I made every effort to perform these tasks as objectively as possible and
assist Warner with the presentation of his amendments. Some amendments or
portions thereof had positive aspects that I recommended be adopted, such as
clarifying how aspects of administration and support would be identified for
inclusion under a unified commanders’ authority. But many of Warner’s
35. Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird (back to camera)

presents the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service
Medal to Navy Secretary John W. Warner. (DoD photo.)
amendments would have weakened reform. Lengthy discussion of each amend-

ment by the members clearly indicated to Warner that he would not be able to
have his reform-weakening amendments adopted, so he did not force a vote on
the first day. The approach of deliberately talking through each issue became
the norm for the markup. By the end of the afternoon session, however, we had
finished only about half of the package laid down by Warner, and it was clear
that he had many more amendments.
The afternoon’s developments displeased Goldwater. It was clear that the
committee would never finish in three days, as he had hoped. The chairman
also feared that the bill might face “death by amendment.” He did not want to
cut off debate, but he worried about how seemingly unending amendments
might affect prospects for completing committee action. Goldwater asked me to
consider how he might put some pressure on the committee’s reorganization

opponents and the Pentagon, which many believed was aiding Warner and his
allies. Goldwater did not want to play an excessively heavy hand; he was look-
ing for firm but not drastic responses that would create pressure and, equally
important, demonstrate that he was serious.
I created a menu of SASC activities that the chairman could hold in abey-
ance while the markup sessions were still under way: no consideration of nomi-
nations for senior defense civilian and military positions, no consideration of
promotions for military officers, no approval of reprogramming of monies from
one defense budget account to another, no consideration of a supplemental
authorization bill, and no approval for the navy to begin expending funds for
its Strategic Homeporting Initiative. Goldwater especially liked holding up the
navy’s project, which he called “strategic homeporking.”
As the chairman read down my list, a hint of a smile emerged. I had ex-
pected him to choose one or two. He looked up and said, “If Senator Nunn has
no objection, do them all.” Goldwater wanted to close down the committee while
it was considering the reorganization bill. He did not want another piece of
paper to move.
The next morning, Goldwater announced his actions to the committee and
indicated that these prohibitions would remain in place at least until the com-
mittee had completed its work on the reorganization bill. If he sensed that ob-
stacles—like a filibuster—might be employed in an effort to prevent the Senate’s
timely consideration of the bill, Goldwater said he might have to leave the pro-
hibitions in place until the Senate had completed action on the bill.
The feisty chairman also announced that he was prepared to dedicate the
entire year to working on reorganization. If this required the committee to forgo
its traditional defense authorization bill, this would, in Goldwater’s view, be an
acceptable price for enacting critically needed Pentagon reform. Goldwater made
clear that he and Nunn were prepared to hear and debate every argument in
an effort to prevent the committee from making decisions on emotional and
superficial bases like those that had dominated congressional action on defense
organization in the s and s.
Later that morning, Warner forced a vote on one of his key amendments:
to have acting JCS chairmanship in the chairman’s absence rotate among the
service chiefs rather than be performed by a newly created vice chairman. Fif-
teen senators were present for the vote, which Goldwater and Nunn won by a
margin of ten to five, with Strom Thurmond providing the critical tenth vote. I
told Goldwater that the four absent senators, who would have until  P.M. to
record their votes, would likely vote with opponents. This would narrow the
victory margin to one vote. Goldwater wanted a bigger margin for this first
crucial vote. He was determined to secure a favorable vote from one of the four
absent senators.
With the list of absent senators in hand, Goldwater and I headed for his
office. By the time we arrived there, the chairman had decided to target the
lightly regarded Dan Quayle. He placed a telephone call to a surprised Quayle
and said that he wanted his vote. Goldwater played political hardball, warning
Quayle that if the Indiana senator failed to support him he would first take the
chairmanship of the Defense Acquisition Policy Subcommittee away from him.
Then he would get him kicked off the Armed Services Committee. And then he
would work for his defeat in the next election.
When he finished, Goldwater put down the receiver and said with a smile
of satisfaction, “Quayle’s voting with us.”
When the committee convened that afternoon, however, Quayle’s military
legislative assistant, Henry Sokolski, approached me and said, “Senator Quayle
wants to change his vote.”
I directed him to speak to Goldwater, who responded, “I have personally
spoken with Senator Quayle, and I will not change his vote unless we speak
again.” As Goldwater anticipated, the day ended without any further word from
the Indiana senator. Although the proreform side won the first vote by a mar-
gin of eleven to seven, Goldwater’s power play backfired: it increased the ten-
sion between the two sides and caused opponents to regroup. Normally, the
chairman and ranking minority member would vote proxies from their party
colleagues. However, because both Goldwater and Nunn were on the same side,
antireform Republicans and Democrats collected their proxies and decided who
would vote them.
Goldwater and Nunn’s commitment to a patient, fair, everyone-gets-to-be-heard

process provided the first important step in creating a high-quality dialogue on
the bill. When Warner, a sincere and considerate gentleman, matched the two
leaders’ tone, the ingredients for a productive examination of the bill were
present. Neither side lessened the intensity of its convictions, but after the ini-
tial trying days, a high degree of collegiality emerged. If a member asked for
more research, opinion of a Pentagon official or officer, a briefing, or examina-
tion of additional options, Goldwater and Nunn made sure that the request
was honored. Warner later commented, “At no time did the distinguished chair-
man or ranking minority member deny me any privilege under the procedures
of the committee to make known my views and the views of those senators
working with me.” Levin observed that Goldwater “chaired the committee in a
nonpartisan way; he has done it in the fairest way I have ever seen the chair-
man conduct the committee.”10
Warner also won admiration for the way he led the opposition. He thor-
oughly challenged every idea and ensured that the Pentagon’s perspective on
each issue was well represented, but he was not intransigent. Christopher K.
Mellon, Cohen’s staffer, later said: “One thing about Senator Warner that I
always admired and respected and caused me to feel a lot of regard and warmth
toward him is that he maintained an open mind. He was willing to change his
point of view based on new evidence and information. Senator Warner might
go into something with a great deal of conviction on one side and argue furi-
ously, and yet as new information would come to light, he always listened.”11
In the lengthy debate of amendments and rewriting of bill provisions,
Cohen and Levin emerged as Goldwater’s and Nunn’s lieutenants. Both were
brilliant and articulate lawyers, and they made insightful, thoughtful contri-
butions. They also helped to shoulder the burden of defending and strengthen-
ing the bill.
At the end of the first week of markup, Congress recessed for a week. When
committee activity resumed, the tactics and battle lines were unchanged. Ac-
tivity focused on the stack of amendments that Warner offered on each bill chap-
ter. Warner’s and Denton’s military legislative assistants, retired army colonel
Romee L. “Les” Brownlee and Allan W. Cameron, respectively, were preparing
Warner’s amendments. While Finn, Smith, and I were burning the midnight oil
to defend the bill, Brownlee and Cameron worked late each night preparing
amendments to attack it. Many staffers were convinced that the navy was help-
ing Brownlee and Cameron, a charge they denied. Arnold Punaro later com-
mented: “There’s absolutely no question that the navy helped them. With their
limited resources and lack of access to legislative counsel, who were helping
Goldwater and Nunn, there’s no way they could put that material together.”12
Other members offered written amendments as well, but in combination,
theirs totaled twenty-seven compared to Warner’s fifty-three amendments. The
committee debated each of Warner’s amendments in exhausting detail. Warner
forced only three roll-call votes, each of which he lost.13
As Thurmond’s steadfastness to Goldwater and reorganization became
clear, the opposition set a new goal. If the opponents could not defeat the bill in
committee, they would set their sights on overturning it on the Senate floor. A
one-vote margin in committee would serve as the springboard for convincing
the full Senate that this legislation was ill considered. To antireform senators
and their supporters in the Pentagon and elsewhere, it was imperative that they
maintain nine votes in opposition. “Ten to nine” became the opponents’ rally-
ing cry, like “fifty-four-forty or fight” more than a century before.
Arnold Punaro, a marine reserve colonel, had to withstand withering an-
tireform pressure from active and retired marines, but he also returned fire.
After every markup session, Punaro took the long way back to his office just so
he could let the antireform officers in the navy–Marine Corps legislative liaison
office know that the proreform faction still had the upper hand on the commit-
tee. The officers responded with the “ten to nine” slogan and told Punaro to
wait until the full Senate got its hands on the committee’s bill.14
Although the solidarity of Goldwater and Nunn’s ten votes convinced op-
ponents that the SASC would report a bill, antireform senators were determined
to make every effort to shape it more to their liking. The committee continued a
detailed debate of each provision, addressing a staggering total of  written
and oral amendments—nearly twice the average number of amendments
during committee markup of a defense authorization bill.
In chairing the markup sessions, Goldwater continued to demonstrate that
he was going to patiently allow the debate of each idea to go on as long as
needed. But he also signaled that he would not tolerate delaying tactics or other
mischief. Symbolic of Goldwater’s preparedness to deal sharply with any dis-
ruptions was a small wooden rifle that he kept close at hand. My secretary,
Barbara Brown, had given the rifle, a rubber-band shooter, to our boss. Gold-
water called it his antiamendment weapon or “AAW.” He kept it loaded at all
times and more often than not held the rifle in his hands. Although he was
tempted to fire it on numerous occasions, he only shot it once. After one ses-
sion, Staff Director Jim McGovern came into the hearing room to speak with
Goldwater. The chairman fired a rubber band at McGovern’s crotch. “Didn’t
hit anything,” the staff director responded. Goldwater, known among friends
for a ribald sense of humor, replied, “Target too small.”
Goldwater and Nunn’s decision to ensure a full debate turned out to be a
critical one. Proreform arguments proved to be more persuasive, and the de-
bate slowly strengthened the position of reform proponents. It was clear that
many opponents were finding the Pentagon’s logic to be superficial and inde-
fensible, even though not a single vote had yet changed sides.
Goldwater and Nunn decided when to offer compromises, including those
on the two extreme recommendations in the draft bill: mission-oriented under
secretaries and the merger of the two headquarters staffs in the military de-
partments. These offers were well timed. Bargains were reached, and both sides
were delighted. The opponents were relieved to have beat back an extreme pro-
vision; Goldwater and Nunn were pleased to have their desired outcome en-
dorsed by the entire committee.
As the markup entered its third week, Goldwater and Nunn began slowly
to pick up support in the debate. Gramm was the first member to switch sides.
But soon after, another senator joined the proreform camp. When Goldwater
and Nunn had thirteen or fourteen senators on their side, the opposition be-
gan to collapse.
Looking back at the committee’s work, Mellon said: “It was an example of
good government. It is the memory I would like to have of the Senate. There
weren’t parochial motives that I was able to discern. Members were motivated
by national security considerations. People were dedicated; everybody was en-
gaged; they were working with a great deal of vigor, energy, and commitment.
Issues were decided on the merits and substance. It was the kind of experience
that makes you want to go into government and be involved and participate.”15
Although the committee was nearing the completion of its deliberations,

Goldwater and Nunn slowed the pace to permit the committee to hear first-
hand from the Packard Commission on February , the day the commission
was slated to deliver its interim report to the president. During the meeting,
Packard said that “the portions of the commission’s report dealing with de-
fense organization and the committee’s bill are consistent and mutually sup-
portive.” The interim report dropped all mention of the JCS vice chairman’s
seniority. On the issue of who should serve as acting chairman, the report rec-
ommended, “The secretary of defense, subject to the direction of the president,
should determine procedures under which an acting chairman is designated.”
Goldwater and Nunn’s press statement announced: “We are absolutely de-
lighted with the report that the Packard Commission submitted today to Presi-
dent Reagan.”16 The meeting with the commission did not produce any new
ideas, but it reassured certain members and added to the rationale others could
cite for their emerging proreform positions.
At the next SASC session, held on March , Warner offered an amendment
to conform the provision on the JCS vice chairman to the Packard Commission’s
language. The amendment—on a priority issue for the Pentagon—was defeated
twelve to four, with only Warner, East, Wilson, and Denton voting in favor.17
The vote confirmed what the debate had signaled earlier: only a handful of
senators continued to oppose key reorganization provisions.
The navy was outraged when it became clear that its supporters in the
committee had been defeated on reorganization. Navy leaders blamed Warner,
Wilson, and Denton, the three senators who had spearheaded the opposi-
tion, referring to them as the “three stooges.” The criticism was self-serving
and grossly unfair. The bill’s opponents had put up a vigorous fight. Unfortu-
nately for antireformers, much of the ammunition the Pentagon supplied had
been duds.
The rigorous challenge to the draft bill carried important benefits. It forced
the members to debate fully every word of the lengthy bill, question every idea,
and thoroughly examine every issue. This rigorous process strengthened the
bill and achieved consensus. Chris Mellon compared it to forging a sword. He
said, “Warner and the Navy were the hammer, and Goldwater, Nunn, and the
staff were the anvil. Warner kept firing in these amendments and concerns and
objections to provisions. In a way, they helped to strengthen, sharpen, and
harden some of the provisions and forged the bill in a hotter fire.”18
The committee accepted about  percent of Warner’s amendments in some
form, many after significant modification.19 None of the amendments that passed
altered the basic thrust of the bill. Instead, they provided useful clarification,
especially of roles and relationships, or provided safeguards governing the exer-
cise of new authority. One major initiative by Warner required the president to
submit an annual national security strategy report to Congress.
On the night before the markup’s last day, Finn, Smith, Punaro, and I specu-
lated about the final vote on the bill. Fifteen votes in favor seemed certain, but
would there be more? I predicted a vote of seventeen to two, with Stennis and
Denton casting the two nays.
The committee met on March  to conclude its work on the bill. Everyone
present understood the historic significance of the coming vote. Goldwater did
not rush this golden moment. He allowed the drama to build and for everyone
to savor the committee’s achievement at the end of a hard-fought battle. Fi-
nally, time for the last roll call came.
In line with practice, Chief Clerk Chris Cowart called the roll of the major-
ity party first, starting with the most senior member after the chairman. It was
fitting that Thurmond, who had represented the pivotal vote in the early going,
cast the first aye. Warner voted yes next, then Humphrey, then Cohen, and all
other Republicans, except for Denton, who passed.
Allan Cameron, Denton’s military legislative assistant, assessed the final vote
in a memorandum for the senator. Cameron himself opposed the bill, arguing
that it “reverses nearly  years of American military history” and earlier leg-
islation that had “concluded that a single military adviser was unwise and that
the military advice in a democracy should be provided by a corporate body.”20
Based upon input “from the staff members of the senators most likely to
vote no,” Cameron predicted the outcome as follows:
Warner: Will vote YES because he believes that the JCS compromise re-
quires it and because he believes that the bill has been sufficiently im-
proved.
Humphrey: Will probably vote YES for reasons of comity, although he is
not happy with the bill.
Quayle: Will probably vote YES.
Wilson: Will vote YES. Believes the issue is politically sensitive for him,
that “the train on defense reform has already left the station,” and that
he cannot afford to vote against “reform” in the context of California poli-
tics and his reelection campaign in .
Gramm: Unknown, but apparently feels some pressure to vote YES for
reasons of committee comity and relations with the chairman.
Stennis: Probably will vote NO because he believes the whole idea of JCS
reform is bad; Stennis went through the [same] wars on the earlier oc-
casions.
Glenn: Unknown, but much pressure to vote YES because of changes to
the bill and the political realities of Ohio.
Cameron’s memorandum summarized the situation: “I suspect a maxi-

mum of three or four NO votes, assuming you vote NO. I certainly believe that
SOMEONE should vote NO, but I would not recommend that you or any other
senator do so ALONE.” As Cowart began to call the roll of Democrats, Denton’s
decision to vote yes or no depended on Stennis’s vote.
On the Democratic side, Nunn led off with his vote in favor. Stennis was
next. He began by explaining the vote he was about to cast. Stennis revealed
that Goldwater had asked to meet with him the night before and that they had
discussed the fundamental issues at stake. “I reiterated that it was an extremely
important vote for the future of the armed forces,” Goldwater later recalled. “I
told him I was not speaking that way because of my background, but because
of what I’ve learned here and what I see.”21 Goldwater’s final attempt to bring
his longtime colleague onboard succeeded. Stennis voted in favor. All of the
other Democrats also voted in the affirmative.
The clerk then asked the chairman for his vote; Goldwater proudly said, “Aye.”
Only Denton’s vote remained to be recorded. When the clerk returned to
him, he voted in favor. His positive vote indicated prudence, not that he sup-
ported the bill. Nevertheless, when Cowart announced the tally, the committee
had approved the bill by an astounding vote of nineteen to none.
News of the committee’s historic unanimous vote was extensively reported
in the print media the next day. The same newspaper editions carried a belated
ill-informed attack against the legislation by syndicated columnists Rowland
Evans and Robert Novak. They had accepted wholesale the superficial arguments
of the Pentagon’s reform opponents. The two columnists sought to characterize
reorganization as “an attempt by serious Democratic politicians to regain mili-
tary respectability through reform” and a “final victory for McNamara’s Whiz
Kids, the super-bureaucrats, against the uniformed professional military.”22
Since I was the only former “whiz kid” on the committee staff, little doubt
existed that Evans and Novak were shooting at me. The morning after the
nineteen to zero vote, Evans and Novak looked foolish claiming that
“Goldwater followed the lead of Sen. Sam Nunn, the committee’s senior Demo-
crat, and has been joined on key votes by only one other Republican, Sen.
William Cohen of Maine.” Had this attack appeared several weeks before it
might have gathered some attention. Instead, it was merely an embarrass-
ment to its authors.
Goldwater and Nunn had done it. In fourteen months of hard work, they had
broken the military services’ stranglehold and had forged new organizational
concepts for the Defense Department. Many concepts were original—such as
those strengthening the increasingly important, but long neglected, warfighting
commands. Not only were Goldwater and Nunn able to gain approval of a com-
prehensive reform bill, they also achieved all of their desired reforms. The strat-
egy of starting the process with extreme recommendations had succeeded in
avoiding the watered-down results they feared. Overcoming the odds against
them, Goldwater and Nunn produced a consensus on the entire spectrum of

defense organization concepts, an agreement never before achieved during the
nation’s history.
Only later did I learn that after the committee’s final vote, Punaro made
his normal trek to the navy-marine liaison office. “Well fellas, you got your ‘ten
to nine’ vote,” he told them. “Ten Republicans for defense reorganization and
nine Democrats for defense reorganization.”23
CHAPTER 23
Mopping-Up
Operations
A prompt and vigorous pursuit is the only means
of ensuring complete success.
—Gen. Philip Sheridan
T he Senate Armed Services Committee’s unanimous vote on its defense re-

organization bill struck the decisive blow in a long campaign to reform the
Pentagon. Congress was almost certain to enact comprehensive legislation. Even
though a veto by President Reagan remained a possibility, sufficient votes would
likely be available for an override. Accordingly, Capitol Hill shifted its attention
from the issue of whether there would be a bill to what kind of bill it would be.
The intellectual challenges of charting the Pentagon’s organizational fu-
ture were daunting. Numerous battles remained, and any setback could prove
costly. Strong pockets of resistance in the Pentagon and retired military commu-
nity were capable of sowing conceptual land mines. The emotion of military
issues can sway public opinion. Countering emotion with reason had gotten the
reformers this far. They needed to be ready to respond quickly to the canards and
red herrings that might now be thrown into the debate.
As the legislation progressed, the SASC would face competing pressures. The
administration appeared determined to weaken the committee’s bill on the Sen-
ate floor. Once past this hurdle, the SASC would have to play a different hand
with its House counterpart, which had begun to draft more far-reaching legisla-
tion. Although the Senate-House conference committee to iron out differences
between the two bills would feature a struggle among friends with common ob-
jectives, sharp disagreements on how to achieve those objectives were certain.
Mopping-Up Operations 415
After the SASC’s last vote on March , Rick Finn, Jeff Smith, and I turned
our attention to two major tasks: putting the bill in final form and preparing
the accompanying report. Hugh C. Evans, the senior defense lawyer in the Office
of the Senate Legislative Counsel and a man with valuable legal drafting expe-
rience, assisted us. Having attended each markup session, Evans understood
the bill and committee action. On March , the final bill, designated S. ,
was circulated for the committee’s review.
Finn, Smith, and I took our time writing the -page report. It represented
important legislative history, and we wanted to clearly and precisely record the
committee’s intent.
On April , Goldwater and Nunn provided copies of our draft report to each
member for review. They allotted three days for this review and informed mem-
bers that the bill would be filed in the Senate on Monday, April .1 Toward the
end of that week, four or five senators who in the early going had been the
most active opponents began complaining to me that they needed more time.
On the afternoon of Thursday, April , Goldwater was scheduled to enter the
hospital for minor surgery. Just prior to his departure, I told the chairman that
several senators were demanding more time.
I asked for guidance, and Goldwater replied, “If that bill is not filed on Mon-
day, you’re going to need a new job.” His words stiffened my spine for dealing
with disgruntled senators.
In response to the chairman’s immovable deadline, several senators huffily
declared that they would have their say in additional views to be filed with the
report. After all the bellyaching, however, only Denton submitted additional views.
For someone who had voted for the bill, Denton’s additional views were
highly critical—not only of the bill, but of the report and the entire process.
“There remain serious questions about whether the bill would in fact lead to
improvement of the organization and functioning of the Department of De-
fense or whether, in fact, it would make the situation worse,” he asserted. It
was unclear how Denton, after announcing that view, could justify his vote. I
was amused to see that he was still firing heavy ammunition at the “bullet traps”
in the staff report. “Whatever needs for change there might be,” he argued,
“the changes required were not, on the whole, those proposed in the staff study.”2
On the night of April –, U.S. aircraft struck targets in Libya. Code-named
Operation El Dorado Canyon, the raid retaliated for a Libyan-backed terrorist
bombing of a West Berlin disco ten days earlier. One American soldier was killed,
and fifty were wounded. A Turkish woman also died, and  others were in-
jured. Navy attack planes from the Sixth Fleet and air force F- aircraft based
in England conducted the raid. The attack commenced at  A.M. local time, lasted
twelve minutes, involved about one hundred strike and support aircraft, and
delivered sixty tons of munitions.
Washington had assigned responsibility for the mission to the European

Command, headed by four-star army general Bernie Rogers, a strong reorgani-
zation supporter. Having suffered through the organizational deficiencies that
had crippled the marines’ employment in Beirut in , Rogers was determined
to avoid the same cumbersome chain of command and service interference.
He established a streamlined command arrangement for the operation and
obtained a commitment from higher authority not to interfere: “I insisted and
Crowe agreed that Washington would stay out of it.”3
The SASC staff study’s extensive criticism of JCS Publication , Unified Ac-
tion Armed Forces (UNAAF) had led the JCS to initiate a review of that publica-
tion, beginning on October , , at the end of Admiral Crowe’s first week as
chairman.4 By the time of Operation El Dorado Canyon, Washington had cir-
culated a draft UNAAF revision for comment that incorporated many of the
expanded authorities for unified commanders contained in S. .
Rogers operated as if the draft revision were already in effect. He desig-
nated the Sixth Fleet commander, Vice Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, as the operation’s
joint commander. Rogers gave Kelso the task, time frame, and authority to pull
the operation together. The raid required only a limited degree of jointness
because navy and air force strikes were “operationally and geographically
divided.”5 Nevertheless, the authority given to local commanders and lack
of Washington interference signaled the beginning of a new approach to
warfighting.
Although the air force lost an F- aircraft, Admiral Crowe judged the
operation “eminently successful.”6 Pentagon congressional liaisons were soon
arguing that the success demonstrated that detailed reforms were not needed.
Senate reformers arrived at a different conclusion. To their minds, the outcome
confirmed the potential of the reforms mandated in S. .
Five days after the attack, Rogers submitted comments on the draft UNAAF.
In a ten-page message, he argued that the vice chairman should rank second
on the JCS and should act as chairman in the chairman’s absence. He urged
that greater weight be given to successful performance by an officer serving on
the Joint Staff. “‘Successful’ is defined as supporting what is best for the nation
rather than best for service,” Rogers added. He argued that unified command-
ers should be given the opportunity to review proposed service programs and
budgets sufficiently early to influence their final construct. Rogers also wanted
unified commanders to have the authority to “establish overall requirements
for and direct the intelligence activities of the command.”7
The navy did not like Rogers’s submission. The CNO’s executive assistant
wrote to Admiral Watkins: “If he [Rogers] got all this stuff, ‘CINC’ would not be
a strong enough title, ‘Emperor’ would be more descriptive.”8 Watkins con-
curred: “I do not agree with most of his inputs! The ‘Emperor’ must not have
his way. This is worse than Locher!”9
Because Rogers had also argued—in line with his SASC testimony in De-
cember—that “service secretaries are no longer needed; creates an extra layer
for obfuscation and delay,” Watkins sent the message to Lehman. The secre-
tary immediately fired the following message to nineteen senior officials and
officers: “Ref A [message] from General Rogers calling for abolishing service
secretaries and giving their powers and functions to unified CINCs calls to mind
the quote from the recent gridiron speaker: ‘Power corrupts, but absolute power
is really neat.’” Rogers sent the message to Nunn as another example of navy
misrepresentation, with a note that ended, “I didn’t dignify the message with a
response.”10 Pentagon sources reported that Lehman was so furious with Rogers
about the original message that he planned to retaliate. At Nunn’s direction,
Arnold Punaro informed Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Russ Rourke
that the SASC would not tolerate any action against Rogers.11
On April , President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive ,

a six-page “SECRET” document approving implementation of those initial rec-
ommendations of the Packard Commission that did not require legislation. In
a covering memorandum, Vice Admiral Poindexter told Reagan: “In the midst
of congressional uncertainty, the NSDD demonstrates our commitment to pro-
ceed with necessary reforms.” However, on March , Poindexter had told
Weinberger: “The NSDD is intended to strengthen your hand vis-à-vis the leg-
islation now in both houses and maintain your control of the implementation
process. . . . The [commission’s] report thus gives the president considerable
leverage in dealing with the more radical proposals for reform that now abound
in both houses.”12
Reagan devoted his weekly radio address on April  to defense reforms. He
did not mention the SASC’s bill, House-passed JCS reorganization bill, or any
other congressional efforts. The president spoke as if the reform initiative belonged
to the administration: “I will soon send a message to the Congress asking your
senators and representatives to join me in reforming the defense establishment.
. . . The changes our administration will request are based upon the recommen-
dations made in February by the Packard Commission, a bipartisan group that
spent months studying ways to give our nation stronger defenses more eco-
nomically.”13
The president transmitted his message on reorganization to Congress on
April . The message contained the same theme as the radio address: the
Packard Commission has recommended the necessary improvements, and Con-
gress needs to take only a few legislative steps “for these improvements to be
fully implemented.” Reagan endorsed legislation, saying, “Certain changes in
law are necessary to accomplish the objectives we seek.” But he had a very
short list of changes in mind. The president asked Congress to designate the
JCS chairman as the principal military adviser, assign the chairman exclusive
control over the Joint Staff, and create the new positions of JCS vice chairman
and under secretary of defense for acquisition. Obliquely referring to the bills in
Congress, Reagan continued, “Other proposed changes in law are, in my judg-
ment, not required.” The president asked Congress to retain the service chiefs
as members of the JCS and permit the president and defense secretary to deter-
mine who should serve as acting chairman in the absence of the chairman.14
In forwarding the message on reorganization to Reagan for his approval,
Poindexter noted that Congress was likely to rebuff the plea to refrain from leg-
islating significant changes: “In this message we will attempt to convince the
Congress that such changes are not necessary because they are already being
implemented through executive action. Unfortunately, however, this will prob-
ably not succeed. We cannot expect the Congress to walk away from four years
of work on defense reorganization. We also have to face the cold reality that
Congress is deeply skeptical that the Department of Defense will follow your
lead and take the actions needed to institute real reform.”15
Poindexter was right. The two Armed Services Committees rejected Reagan’s
plea. Having little confidence in the Pentagon, the committees were convinced
that all reforms would require the force of law to guarantee reasonable pros-
pects for meaningful implementation. Goldwater wrote Reagan to tell him that
“much more remains to be done” than his NSSD  directives.16
In the weeks leading up to Senate floor action, I met with key NSC and DoD
representatives to discuss S. . I learned that the administration would push
three or four amendments. Because each would weaken the bill, I informed the
executive branch emissaries that the committee would oppose them. The admin-
istration was also convinced that it could muster at least fifteen votes in opposi-
tion to the bill, but even this would not be enough to prevent a veto override.
On April , the Office of Management and Budget issued a Statement of
Administration Policy on S.  that began, “The administration supports
Senate passage of S.  provided that an amendment is adopted to delete the
requirement that the term of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff expires
no later than six months after the accession of a new president. This provision
could have the effect of politicizing the military establishment.” The SASC had
added this provision to its bill to enable a president to have a chairman of his
choosing shortly after he entered office without having to fire the incumbent.
The administration’s concern was overblown. A minor change to the provi-
sion—starting the chairman’s term on October —resolved the issue.
The administration’s policy statement also announced support for amend-
ments to modify or delete eight provisions that limit the defense secretary’s
authority to manage personnel, procedures, and structure, delete provisions
that require staff reductions and impose permanent personnel ceilings, and
clarify the president’s and defense secretary’s authority to name an acting JCS
chairman in the chairman’s absence.17
On May , Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D–New York) called Nunn to

report that the navy was waging a misinformation campaign against S. .
Other members had commented to Goldwater and Nunn about the navy’s an-
tireform lobbying, but Moynihan’s detailed report of misstatements by Deputy
Under Secretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey triggered a vigorous response from
the two leaders. Instructed to prepare a letter to Weinberger, I wrote text that
was midway between Goldwater’s guns-blazing style and Nunn’s cautious ap-
proach. Goldwater, who found my draft too weak, asked, “When’s the staff go-
ing to get some balls?” Nunn labeled my draft too tough, asserting, “We can’t
say that.” When I told each the other’s position, they agreed to send the letter
as drafted.
The senators’ letter told Weinberger they were “extremely troubled,” and
reported:
Although this [Cropsey’s lobbying] is troubling enough in light of the

support for the bill provided in the President’s Message to the Congress
on defense organization and the Administration’s Policy Statement on
the bill, we are even more disturbed because Mr. Cropsey is seriously
misrepresenting the bill. . . . Mr. Cropsey characterized S.  as being
unconstitutional. He also charged that the bill would result in loss of
civilian control; make the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a voting
member of the National Security Council; and strengthen the combat-
ant commanders to the extent they would become “proconsuls.”. . .
Mr. Cropsey’s unprincipled efforts to misrepresent this bill are an affront
to the integrity of the national political process.
We do not believe for a moment that you are aware of Mr. Cropsey’s
activities or that you would condone them. We cannot say the same
for the Secretary of the Navy. In our view, Secretary Lehman must be
held fully accountable for Mr. Cropsey’s activities. . . . We urge you to
do everything within your power to correct this situation. While we
could appeal to others or could use congressional authority to seek
remedies, only you can deal effectively with this problem. We urge you
to do so.18
The Senate devoted May  to considering S. . In an early morning meet-

ing, Secretary Lehman asked Senator Warner to offer an amendment that would
exempt the navy from having to comply with the bill. Stunned by Lehman’s
request, Warner asked his assistant, Les Brownlee, for his thoughts. Brownlee
said that the idea of excluding one of the three military departments was un-
workable. He added that Senator Warner had carried so much water for the
navy in the reorganization fight that it would be best if Lehman found another
sponsor for his amendment.19
36. Senator Sam Nunn and Cong. Les Aspin.

(Sam Nunn Archives, Emory University.)
The Senate convened at  A.M. on May , and forty minutes later turned
its attention to S. . Although Goldwater and Nunn kept their guard up all
day waiting for the administration’s amendments to be presented, the Senate’s
activity was like a celebration. Seven minor clarifying amendments were offered
and accepted, and three others were introduced and withdrawn. An extrane-
ous amendment dealing with support to rebels in Afghanistan and Angola was
tabled. Most of the day was devoted to explaining the bill and praising it and
the SASC’s two leaders. Over the preceding seven months, many senators who
were not committee members had watched with amazement as prodefense
conservatives Goldwater and Nunn clashed with the Pentagon’s powerful brass.
They understood the magnitude of political and intellectual challenges that
the two committee leaders had overcome and took the floor to offer their con-
gratulations.
Goldwater and Nunn had closely coordinated every move on the Senate
floor. Thus, in midafternoon, when Nunn announced that he had a “revolu-
tionary” amendment,20 Goldwater grabbed me and said, “What is he doing?”
Nunn’s surprise amendment would name the bill after Goldwater.
I was as surprised as Goldwater. As Nunn was praising Goldwater’s “wis-
dom, courage, and leadership,” I was thinking that the two senators had worked
as partners. The bill should be titled “Goldwater-Nunn.” I wanted to mention
that possibility to Goldwater, but he was overcome by emotion. Moreover, Nunn
had cosponsors for his amendment, which suggested this was a well-coordi-
nated move and that a staffer’s suggestion to modify it would not be appreciated.
Nunn’s magnanimous gesture so pleased Goldwater that the crusty old
man cried. Nunn set aside his own interest to ensure that Goldwater got the
credit he deserved.
At : P.M., when the clerk had finished calling the roll on final passage of
the “Barry Goldwater Department of Defense Reorganization Act of ,” the
vote was ninety-five to none in favor. Like its amendments, the administration’s
fifteen opposing votes had evaporated. After the vote, Goldwater and Nunn went
to the press gallery to answer reporters’ questions. During this informal press
conference, Goldwater said of the bill, “It’s the only . . . damned thing I’ve done
in the Senate that’s worth a damn.”21
For several years, the House had been far ahead of the Senate on reorganiza-
tion. When the SASC staff report was released on October , , the House
found itself trailing the Senate by a considerable distance. The Senate’s com-
prehensive reorganization effort now overshadowed the House’s narrowly fo-
cused JCS reform proposals.
When Cong. Les Aspin became House Armed Services Committee chair-
man in January, , he had placed JCS reorganization high on his agenda.
The Wisconsin Democrat had risen to the top post by mounting a coup to un-
seat aged Chairman Melvin Price, jumping over five more senior Democrats. A
reporter described the forty-six-year-old Aspin as “alternately charming and
inconsiderate, a windmill of arms and shoulders when he speaks, a bluster of
energy and goals and four-letter words.” The new chairman—a former Rhodes
scholar with a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology—was known as “a serious thinker who also loves political pit fights.”22
Aspin was tall—six feet two inches—with prematurely silver hair and a
bald spot. His rumpled suits hung “on his large frame like a loose sack.” He was
“notorious for his clumsy manners.” Washington viewed him as “a defense
intellectual, a member of the elite fraternity of experts on strategic weaponry,
arms control, Soviet military strength and the arcana of the American defense
system.” His expertise, policy skills, and Pentagon service made him intellectu-
ally a better choice than Cong. Bill Nichols to lead a broad reorganization cam-
paign. But Nichols rated as a better choice politically because of his conservative
credentials, combat record, and standing with HASC members. Aspin under-
stood this. He would prod Nichols and Arch Barrett to be more aggressive on JCS
reform and eventually to explore other reorganization areas, but he was not
about to usurp Nichols’s leadership role.23
Having participated in the CSIS Defense Organization Project, Aspin fa-

vored a broad reorganization effort. With Nichols focused on JCS reform, Aspin
put several other reorganization topics—the Pentagon’s decision-making pro-
cess, role of service secretaries, and influence of unified commanders—on the
agenda of his newly formed Defense Policy Panel.24
On October , , eight days after release of the SASC staff report, the
HASC Investigations Subcommittee passed another JCS Reorganization Act,
H.R. . Due to Aspin’s prodding and support, the bill contained more far-
reaching provisions than the previous House bill.25 These included making the
chairman the principal military adviser and creating a deputy chairman. The
full committee gave its approval on October , and the House passed the bill
by a vote of – on November . Twenty-one Republicans voted against
the bill, including Reps. Jack Kemp, John McCain, and Richard Armey.
The administration had opposed the bill, saying in a policy statement: “No
legislative action should be taken until the recommendations of the Packard
Blue Ribbon Commission have been evaluated and other congressional pro-
posals have been reviewed. Therefore, the administration opposes enactment
of H.R.  at this time.”26 The overwhelming approval of the bill showed
how little influence the administration had on this subject.
A few days later, Aspin was ready to shift into high gear and work through
the Thanksgiving recess to prepare a comprehensive reorganization bill. At a
meeting with Barrett, he said, “The Senate’s coming, and it’s coming with a
broad bill. We’re going to go for a very broad bill. We’re going to pass a defense
organization bill that will complement what we’ve just done on the JCS.” Aspin’s
desire to move quickly shocked Barrett, who had just completed an exhausting
effort on the JCS bill and did not see the need to match the Senate’s broader
legislation. He remembered telling Aspin: “You know, first of all, you only have
me. I’m tired. I plan to go off for Thanksgiving, and I’m going.” For the first time
in his House career, Barrett dug in his heels with his boss: “It’ll just have to
wait until I get back.”27
Aspin was notorious for forgetting staff vacations. Having approved them
in advance, he was shocked when staffers were not available. He was known to
ask, “Who said they could take vacations?” The day before another Thanks-
giving, one of his office staff meetings “drifted into the dark hours.” Finally,
Aspin’s administrative assistant nudged him, “Les, it’s getting late. Some people
have to get on the road.”
“Why?” he asked blankly.
“It’s Thanksgiving, Les. A national holiday. Remember the Pilgrims?”28
Barrett, recalling his disagreement with Aspin on whether or not the House
needed a broad bill, said: “The way I was looking at it was: ‘Okay, the Senate’s
going to do a whole broad range of things. We’ve done really good work on the
JCS. So, we’ll have a conference, and we’ll put it all together.’ But Mr. Aspin’s
view was: ‘No, the House can’t go in there naked on all of these issues.’”29 Driven
by Aspin, the Investigations Subcommittee initiated work on a broad bill.
The SASC and HASC leaders and staff communicated extensively through-
out  and . Goldwater and Nunn often met or wrote to Aspin and rank-
ing HASC Republican Bill Dickinson. Sometimes Nichols participated in these
sessions. Staff level contacts were even more extensive. In an unusual session
on January , Aspin asked Finn, Jeff Smith, and me to meet with him, Barrett,
and Kim Wincup to discuss how the HASC might proceed. We described areas
that the SASC bill would comprehensively address and those that needed addi-
tional attention where the HASC might consider focusing its limited time. One
such area was personnel policies for joint officers.
While the Senate committee was marking up its bill during February and
March, the HASC Investigations Subcommittee held a series of broad reorga-
nization hearings. Starting on February , thirteen hearings were conducted,
with the last occurring on March , six days after the final SASC vote. On
February , Aspin, Nichols, Skelton, and a few other reformers introduced
four bills dealing with unified commands, joint officer management, military
departments, and defense agencies. Aspin commissioned a twenty-two-page
staff report to justify and garner support for House action.30 When Barrett saw
that the desired product was what he called a proreform “polemic” rather than
an objective presentation, he refused to work on it or allow his name to be asso-
ciated with it. On March , these four bills were merged into a single bill, H.R.
, which Nichols introduced. Aspin provided the drive and intellectual lead-
ership for preparation of these bills, leading Barrett to later say, “On the House
side, Aspin is the unsung hero of defense reorganization.”31
Building upon momentum created by the SASC bill, HASC reformers pro-
posed more ambitious reforms in H.R. . All of a sudden, the SASC bill looked
more reasonable to the Pentagon. On May , Weinberger, congratulating
Goldwater on the Senate-passed bill, wrote, “Please be assured that we will sup-
port the bill in its current form in conference, although we will seek amend-
ments relating to the remaining issues we have discussed.”32
The HASC planned to address H.R.  on June . Hoping to influence
the outcome, the JCS invited Nichols and his Investigations Subcommittee col-
leagues to a breakfast meeting on June . Barrett advised Aspin that the JCS
had “pulled out all the stops” at the breakfast. He reported that the JCS had
invited other HASC members at the last moment to produce a guest list that
“was stacked against HASC members who support the bill. Both Mr. Nichols
and Mr. Kasich went to the breakfast and came back telling me how acrimoni-
ous the exchanges became.” Barrett also reported that the CNO, Adm. Jim
Watkins, called provisions dealing with the consolidation of military department
headquarters “un-American.” Barrett wrote of the reaction of the patriotic
Nichols, who had lost a leg in World War II combat: “Mr. Nichols took personal
offense and so stated. I have never seen Mr. Nichols so upset as when he came
by my office and told me what had happened. I think the JCS behavior will work
in our favor.”33
Admiral Crowe “vividly remembered” that breakfast meeting: “I could have
shot Watkins, could have just shot him. If I hadn’t shot him, Nichols would
have. He truly offended Nichols, and I spent the next six weeks trying to get
Nichols squared away. Of course, Watkins was just five days from retirement.
So, he just marched away. Watkins has a tremendous ego. It never occurred to
him that he offended anybody. But he called what Nichols was proposing ‘un-
American.’ And Nichols didn’t have that view of himself. . . . Nichols and his
colleagues had a right to be upset.”34
Barrett describes the scene for the markup of H.R. : “We had opposi-
tion on the HASC, not anything like in the SASC, but the Pentagon was putting
on a full-court press.” He advised Aspin, “There’s no question that we have
significant pockets of strong resistance on the committee. Moreover, many
members are uncommitted.” With this opposition and the Senate naming its
bill for Goldwater in mind, Barrett wrote to Aspin, “Sooner or later it is going to
occur to members that the House should also have a name on the legislation,
and the logical choice is Mr. Nichols. (Another choice, as you and I both know,
is Les Aspin; but I surmise that this cannot be [because of Nichols’s more vis-
ible leadership role and his higher standing with HASC colleagues].) If Mr.
Nichols’ name is going to be placed on the bill, I recommend that it be done in
the committee because this is where it will have the most effect in diluting op-
position.”35
The next day, after Nichols had explained the bill to the committee, Aspin
said, “I would like to offer the first amendment. My amendment would be to
name . . . it the Bill Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of .” Of Aspin’s
move at the markup’s beginning, Barrett recalled, “It just slew the opposition.
A very few members brought up their amendments. Others just would read
their amendments and withdraw them. It just emasculated whatever little op-
position there was going to be.”36 The committee approved the bill by a thirty-
nine to four vote. It addressed nearly all areas included in the Senate-passed
bill, except for JCS reorganization, which the House had approved in H.R. 
the preceding November.
During his explanation of the unified command part of H.R. , Nichols
spoke of the marine barracks bombing: “We laid the blame for the tragedy in
Beirut in  on the shoulders of the commander on the ground and his supe-
riors in the chain of command right up to the commander of the European
Command [General Rogers]. . . . But responsibility is only one side of the coin.
The other side is authority to carry out a responsibility. . . . After extensive hear-
ings this year we can affirm that the combatant commanders—CINCs—the
Bernie Rogerses—lack authority commensurate with their responsibilities. They
are responsible for our very survival as a nation if war should come because
they are our combat commanders. Yet, incredibly, their authority is limited.”
Barrett said this statement was “not an apology to Rogers, but an indication
that Nichols knew more in  than he did in  about the whole situation.”37
Unable to schedule floor time for the House to consider H.R. , the HASC
offered an amendment to attach H.R.  to the defense authorization bill for
Fiscal Year , while the House was deliberating the latter bill on August .
The House gave its approval to this amendment—and thereby to H.R. —
by a vote of –. Democrats Samuel S. Stratton of New York, James Weaver
of Oregon, and Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas and Republican William Carney of
New York cast the four negative votes. In the entire Congress, these four votes
were the only ones cast against the final version of either House’s reorganiza-
tion bill.
The House required additional parliamentary maneuvering before the two
houses could begin to reconcile their reorganization bills. House Resolution
 had to be detached from the defense authorization bill and combined with
H.R. . The House approved these actions on August , clearing the way
for a Senate-House conference committee.
By August , the SASC and HASC leaders were becoming increasingly con-
cerned about the congressional calendar. With elections looming in Novem-
ber, Congress would recess in early October. To avoid a pocket veto and ensure
that Capitol Hill had the chance to override a veto, Congress needed to send the
bill to the White House not later than mid-September. With a congressional
recess scheduled to begin on Friday, August , and last until September , work
needed to start immediately on resolving differences between the Senate and
House bills.
Shortly after the Senate’s May  vote, I began preparing spreadsheets to
show the differences in the two bills for use by the Senate-House conferees. This
was not easy. The two bills were long, structured differently, and took different
approaches to the same topic. After figuring out what to compare to what and
how, brevity became a second challenge. I had to capture a provision’s essence
in a few words. With too many words, the spreadsheets lost their utility. I had
the spreadsheets ready for Arch Barrett’s review when the House completed
action on August .
Although the two bills embodied similar themes, they contained more than
two hundred significant differences and more than a thousand substantive
wording differences. Convened on August , the conference committee con-
sisted of all nineteen SASC members, but only seven HASC members: Aspin,
Dickinson, Nichols, and Hopkins—full committee and Investigations Subcom-
mittee chairmen and ranking members—and Skelton, Mavroules, and Kasich,
each of whom had participated extensively in reorganization efforts.
The conference committee designated Goldwater and Nichols as chairman

and vice chairman. “In my view,” began Goldwater, “the conference commit-
tee is in an excellent position. We can select the best ideas from two outstand-
ing bills. Furthermore, I don’t expect this conference to be contentious. Our
bills share thirteen fundamental objectives. We differ solely on how to best
achieve these common goals.” He asked the conferees to agree to four prin-
ciples: “focus on the genuine needs of U.S. national security . . . carefully con-
sider each issue and hear all points of view . . . each provision should rise or fall
on its own merits . . . [and] ensure that provisions of law are not so detailed or
specific that they cannot be adapted to the needs of the unforeseen future.”38
The committee devoted its attention to resolving the twenty-three most
significant differences before the August  recess. This list included the term
and duties of the JCS chairman, details of establishing the vice chairman posi-
tion, channel of command communications issues, specific authorities for
unified commanders, qualifications required of unified commanders, joint
officer personnel policies, and personnel reductions in defense agencies. The
twenty-three issues were hotly contested over three grueling days of negotia-
tions. Barrett and I presented each issue and each house’s position. A normal
conference is a madhouse. The complexity of the reorganization issues tripled
the difficulty of having a twenty-six-member committee, divided by house and
political party, reach agreement.
The more far-reaching provisions of the House bill created problems on
the Senate side. The majority of Republican senators had accepted the SASC
bill only after a bitter fight. They were not prepared to give another inch and
vociferously opposed the House provisions. Goldwater and Nunn, even when
they favored a House provision, felt compelled to honor major compromises
struck during the SASC markup.
One such issue involved the House’s proposal to merge the civilian and
military headquarters staffs in the military departments. The staff-drafted SASC
bill had contained a similar provision, but Goldwater and Nunn had negoti-
ated it away. Despite sympathy for the House provision, they refused to accede
to it. The conference finally approved a compromise that would consolidate
seven functions in the civilian secretariats.
When the committee recessed on August , Barrett, Finn, Jeff Smith, and
I began the painstaking process of resolving all other differences, preparing the
bill, and writing the report. To guard against a veto, the conference committee
had instructed us to complete our work and have it available for consideration
on September , the day after the recess ended. We took the first weekend off to
catch our breath. On Monday, August , we shifted into high gear: seven-day
workweeks and fifteen-hour days.
The pressure was enormous. Four years of arduous work were on the line,
and this legislation was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalize the
military by fixing its structural flaws. We had to get it right. Another thirty
years might pass before Congress again made major legislative changes to de-
fense organization.
Hugh Evans and his counterpart, Robert W. Cover from the House’s Office
of Legislative Counsel, worked with us. To provide the legal support that we
needed, they adopted a work schedule even more onerous than our own. While
we worked from nine in the morning until midnight, the two lawyers would
start at noon and work until four or five every morning. When we adjourned at
midnight, Evans and Cover would stay until they had produced a clean legal
text of agreements reached that day. They would have the new drafts waiting
for us when we arrived the following morning.
On the Senate side, we had two other lawyers and an organizational ex-
pert advising us. On a close-hold basis, I had asked the Pentagon’s top reorga-
nization lawyers—Andrew S. Effron and navy captain Rick DeBobes—and a
key organizational specialist—Ralph Furtner—to review drafts of the legal text.
Effron worked for the OSD general counsel, and DeBobes was the JCS’s legal
adviser and legislative assistant. Furtner served in the Pentagon’s Office of
Administration and Management.
Given the adversarial relationship between Congress and the Pentagon on
reorganization, all parties needed to keep quiet about this arrangement. Many
on Capitol Hill did not trust the Pentagon and would have opposed allowing
defense personnel access to conference work. House knowledge of this arrange-
ment could have strained Senate-House staff relations. Pentagon colleagues of
Effron, DeBobes, and Furtner would have viewed working with the SASC staff
as collaborating with the enemy. Although their immediate superiors had con-
sented, few in the Pentagon knew of their activities.
This behind-the-scenes work with Pentagon counterparts paid dividends.
Some heated debates occurred before we agreed that they were to refrain from
commenting on fundamental decisions and limit their role to advising on how
the Pentagon would legally interpret various provisions. They also brought to
our attention unintended consequences of proposed statutory changes.
Barrett, Finn, Smith, and I had set Friday, August , as the deadline for
settling all differences. When that day arrived, we had made excellent progress.
Only a few issues remained. Unfortunately, they were among the toughest ones.
We negotiated all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and we finally
finished on Monday, Labor Day. Those four days were brutal. Both sides—con-
vinced that they had a better vision of DoD’s organizational needs and how to
meet them—did not yield easily. By the time we finished, we were exhausted.
After members and staff had reviewed the resulting bill and report, the
conference committee met at  P.M. on Thursday, September , to resolve six
minor issues and take final action. The proposed bill fully satisfied an over-
whelming majority of conferees, and the meeting was expected to last an hour.
However, the Pentagon’s strongest supporters among Republican senators

fussed about aspects of a number of provisions, especially ones consolidating
certain functions in the military department headquarters and establishing
joint officer policies. A heated debate broke out. I had arranged for a Senate
photographer to capture the historic end of the conference with Goldwater and
Nichols shaking hands across the table. The photographer departed after his
allotted one hour without snapping a shot. Finally, Goldwater cut off his Re-
publican colleagues, and the committee unanimously adopted the conference
report on both the Senate and House sides. Nunn then moved to name the bill
the “Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of ,”
which the conferees unanimously approved.39
After the session, a HASC press release quoted Aspin as saying, “This is
one of the landmark laws of American history. It is probably the greatest sea
change in the history of the American military since the Continental Congress
created the Continental Army in .” A few days later, a letter from Admiral
Moorer to Barrett declared, “I just want to tell you once again, I think the Con-
gress has made a serious mistake and that in very short time you will find it
necessary to address your mistakes.”40
Following approval of the bill, the staff rushed to prepare the conference
report for filing. Four staffers—Barrett, Finn, Smith, and I—and two support-
ing lawyers—Evans and Cover—finished this task about  P.M. on Friday, Sep-
tember , and filed the bill with the Clerk of the House, who had remained
available to receive it. On the following Monday and Tuesday, the Senate and
then the House approved the conference report by voice vote.
Congress had done its part. Now the Goldwater-Nichols Act required only
the president’s signature to become law.
The Commander in Chief Approves 429
CHAPTER 24
The Commander
in Chief Approves
All successful revolutions are
the kicking in of a rotten door.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty
G iven near unanimous congressional support, not even a veto by Presi-

dent Reagan could derail the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Senate and House
leaders could easily muster the two-thirds vote required in each house to over-
ride a veto. Even though they had the votes, Senators Goldwater and Nunn
wanted to avoid the damage a veto by the commander in chief could do. The
act called for dramatic and painful changes in the way the Department of De-
fense would conduct operations, formulate plans, make program decisions, and
manage officers. It also sought to gradually alter the military culture. Success
of the reforms would depend on effective implementation. A veto might en-
courage foot-dragging or worse in the Pentagon.
On the surface, a veto seemed inconceivable. The Reagan administration,
however, sometimes showed flashes of unpredictability. Secretary Weinberger’s
singular influence with Reagan meant that there was some chance that the
president might be persuaded to veto the bill.
With those thoughts in mind, Goldwater and Nunn asked me to meet with
Ron Lehman and Mike Donley of the National Security Council staff to check
the White House’s reaction to the bill. We expected it to be favorable. McFarlane
and Poindexter had supported the reorganization effort, and Reagan had en-
dorsed the Packard Commission’s recommendations, which paralleled the pro-
visions of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. I expected a pro forma trip to the Old
Executive Office Building, where it seemed certain that Lehman and Donley
would tell me of rapid progress toward a presidential signature.
Instead, Lehman and Donley, who were both close friends of mine, received
me with calculated coolness and refused to predict what course of action Reagan
might take. I was stunned. After the lengthy congressional battle and exhaust-
ing work, the possibility of a veto unnerved me. I knew that Lehman and Donley
personally supported Pentagon reorganization. Their equivocation communi-
cated that they had not ruled out the president yielding to an appeal from his
pal Weinberger and his beloved military. Soon the three of us were exchanging
heated words. Donley later explained their position: “You never commit the
president to a course of action before he has to decide. That’s sort of an operat-
ing principle.” But he also admitted, “You can’t always be an accurate speaker
for Weinberger in terms of what he would recommend at the very end.”1
My report of the meeting discouraged Goldwater and Nunn.
After the Senate and House had passed the Goldwater-Nichols Act on Sep-
tember  and , it had to be enrolled before it could be submitted to the presi-
dent. Enrolling involved printing the bill on parchment and having the speaker
of the House and president of the Senate or their designees sign it. With the
end of the session approaching, a backlog of bills awaited printing on parch-
ment. Because of the Goldwater-Nichols Act’s importance and concerns about
having sufficient time before Congress adjourned for a veto override, the secre-
tary of the House gave it sufficient priority to complete the printing in two days.
After Cong. Thomas S. Foley signed the act for the House and Sen. Strom
Thurmond for the Senate, the Goldwater-Nichols Act was submitted to the presi-
dent on Friday, September .2 The Constitution provides the president ten
days—not counting Sundays—to act on a bill. That meant he would need to
act not later than Wednesday, October .
The Office of Management and Budget exercises responsibility for recommend-

ing a position to the president on enacted legislation. Even before the enrolled
bill arrived at the White House, OMB had requested the views of the NSC and
Departments of Defense and Justice. The Pentagon responded first. Deputy Sec-
retary Taft’s letter to OMB advised, “The Department of Defense interposes no
objections to presidential approval of H.R. .”3 Taft did not go as far as rec-
ommending approval, but “no objections” registered as a positive response.
Chapman Cox had prepared the letter for Taft’s signature. His covering
memorandum stated: “While we have continuing concern with respect to the
implementation of certain provisions of the bill which you should monitor
closely, we recommend that the president sign the bill.” Normally, Pentagon
officials would widely coordinate a letter establishing DoD’s position on major
legislation. Cox did not follow that route. He advised Taft: “This memorandum
and letter have not been coordinated with the military departments nor with
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Only the new general counsel, H. L.
“Larry” Garrett III, had coordinated.4
The navy’s continued opposition may have convinced Cox to forgo normal
coordination procedures. A draft memorandum from Lehman to Weinberger
argued that the reorganization bill “will reduce your authority and dramatically
increase Pentagon bureaucracy.” After restating opposition to many provisions,
the memorandum concluded, “These factors will reverse the trend toward effective
defense management and successful military operations that has taken place
under your leadership. I urge you to consider the serious consequences of H.R.
’s enactment into law, and convey those concerns to the president.”5
Fearing that Weinberger might acquiesce to the Goldwater-Nichols Act,
Lehman’s staff drafted two long letters for him to send directly to the White
House: one to presidential assistant Patrick J. Buchanan and the other to the
president. The highly political letter to Buchanan argued: “Simply put, the
legislation aims to derail the president’s policies as well as his accomplishments
in strengthening national defense. Only time will tell if it actually endangers
national security. Your consideration and help are requested to prevent these
eventualities.” The letter called the bill “a harsh attack” on the Reagan ad-
ministration, “radical,” and “privately being used for Democratic Party ends.”6
The letter ended with the navy’s strategy for securing a veto:
It is clear from the Packard report that virtually every needed change in
defense structure can, under current law, be undertaken without additional
legislation. In that light, given the conferees’ failure to meet the
administration’s wishes on the bill, it would be entirely appropriate for the
president to pocket [veto] it, promulgate an executive order on his own re-
forms, and let Congress know that politics will not stand in the way of a
strong defense. At the same time, the leadership on these issues of such highly
regarded legislators as Senator Goldwater should be strongly recognized, and
they could be brought in to help implement the message. Or, alternatively,
the president could ask for certain congressional actions required to imple-
ment the Packard Commission, which could also serve as a suitable legisla-
tive monument to Senator Goldwater.
The draft letter to Reagan, focusing on the substance of the bill and not on
politics, restated the navy’s objections. It ended by urging a veto: “While a num-
ber of provisions of H.R.  are good ones, others are so flawed as to erode
our national security. They not only restrict the authority of the president and
secretary of defense, they also bottle-neck our combat forces in unneeded new
bureaucracy—a prescription for future military failure. In the absence of a line-
item veto, we must urge you to reject H.R. , and implement its positive
recommendations by executive means.”7
Ever the wise politician, Lehman, apparently sensing no interest, did not
sign the correspondence to Weinberger, Buchanan, and Reagan, and the let-
ters were never sent.
On September , the NSC informed OMB that it “recommends that the presi-
dent sign” the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Two days later, OMB director James C.
Miller III forwarded his favorable recommendation to Reagan. He noted that the
OMB and NSC recommended approval of the bill, DoD had no objection, and the
Department of Justice had no comment. Miller concluded, “While Congress did
not accommodate all of the administration’s concerns, . . . H.R.  is a
significant step toward reforming the structure and management of the Defense
Department as was strongly recommended by the Packard Commission.”8
Six White House offices reviewed Miller’s memorandum before it reached
the president. All concurred except Buchanan’s Office of Communications,
which had “no objection.”9 An internal memorandum in the White House
Counsel’s Office, concurring with OMB’s position, reveals the unending consti-
tutional competition between the executive and legislative branches: “While
the bill evidences a continuing trend on the part of the Congress to engage in
micromanagement of military affairs, including a delineation of the authority
of frontline commanders and the manner in which the president receives mili-
tary advice, I do not believe they constitute a sufficient basis for a presidential
veto. Furthermore, since the legislation consists, in large part, of measures rec-
ommended by the Packard Commission and approved by the president, I do
not believe a veto would be appropriate.”10
On September , David L. Chew, staff secretary and deputy assistant to
the president, sent Reagan a brief note: “Attached for your approval is enrolled
bill H.R. , the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization
Act of .” The note informed the president of the positions of all depart-
ments and White House offices and advised him that the following day, Octo-
ber , was the last day for action.11
While the bill was making its way to the president, Donley began planning a
signing ceremony with help from John Douglass. Donley’s initial proposal to-
taled thirty-eight attendees for the ceremony including me, my wife, and our
son.12 By the third iteration, the list was down to eighteen: five senators, six
congressman, three from the Pentagon, and four from the White House and
NSC staffs. No congressional staff would be invited. The NSC staff also planned
a side conversation between Reagan and Goldwater after the signing ceremony,
with the president saying, “Congratulations, Barry; you are leaving a tremen-
dous mark on our defense establishment. Only someone of your stature could
get this accomplished.”13 I later learned that when the White House approached
Goldwater and Nunn with the tentative plan for a small ceremony, the sena-
tors said if their staff was not invited, they would not attend.14
As part of the signing ceremony preparation, the NSC staff had drafted a
forward-leaning, two-and-one-half-page statement for the president’s use. The
Pentagon objected, saying that the statement did “not accurately portray the
history of this administration in acquisition and management improvement.
The president and Secretary Weinberger have led an evolving and growing effort
in this area since the early days of the administration.” Instead, DoD recom-
mended a much briefer statement that was less fulsome in its praise of the leg-
islation and Packard Commission recommendations.15
Except for the exploratory calls to Goldwater, Nunn, and key House mem-
bers about possible attendance at a signing ceremony, all executive branch ac-
tivity had taken place without congressional knowledge. As the deadline for
action approached, the two Armed Services Committees were in the dark as to
what direction Reagan would take. The committees’ leaders and staff were not
sitting around waiting. We were fully engaged in the conference committee on
the defense authorization bill.
On the morning of October , Reagan traveled to Atlanta to participate in
the dedication ceremony for the Carter Presidential Center. He returned to
Washington in midafternoon. With the afternoon hours passing, there still had
been no word from the White House as to the president’s intentions. Appar-
ently, there was not going to be a signing ceremony. (The Pentagon’s lack of
interest scuttled plans for a ceremony.)16
By six o’clock, activity in Room SR-, where my office was located, was
beginning to slow. I was sitting at my desk working on conference issues when
Chris Cowart, the chief clerk, opened my door and said, “Congratulations. The
Senate bill clerk just called to say the president signed the Goldwater-Nichols
Act. I’ll let everyone else know.”17
That was it. The momentous battle that had raged for four years and 
days—longer than U.S. fighting in World War II—ended with a whimper.
The White House issued a terse, three-paragraph press statement. Reagan
called the act “a milestone in the long evolution of defense organization since
our national security establishment was created in ,” and thanked six mem-
bers of Congress—Goldwater, Nunn, Nichols, Skelton, Kasich, and Hopkins—
and Weinberger, Packard, and the JCS for “their patience and perseverance.”
He concluded by saying: “After long and intense debate, we have set a respon-
sible course of action by taking another important step forward, building on
improvements underway since , and affirming the basic wisdom of those
who came before us—the Forrestals, Bradleys, Radfords, and Eisenhowers—
advancing their legacy in light of our own experience.”18
The Pentagon got its wish. The statement was short, bland, thanked oppo-
nents as well as architects, and in speaking of the wisdom of predecessors, cited
two—Forrestal and Radford—who had done as much as anyone to delay needed
organizational changes.
37. Senator Goldwater (left to right), Jim Locher, Barbara Brown, Jeff Smith,
and Senator Nunn celebrate passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act,
October 16, 1986, in Goldwater’s office. (U.S. Senate photo.)
In the absence of a White House ceremony, Rick Finn, Jeff Smith, and I decided
to arrange a small gathering during which we would honor Goldwater and
Nunn’s historic achievement. October  would mark the first anniversary of
their release of the staff study and commencement of their public campaign to
achieve reform. We decided to have hard covers put on two copies of the study
and inscribe them for presentation to Goldwater and Nunn on that anniver-
sary date.
Goldwater, Nunn, Jeff Smith, Barbara Brown, and I gathered in Goldwater’s
office on the morning of October , . We were missing Rick Finn, whose
wife was giving birth to their first child. I opened the ceremony by making a
speech about Goldwater’s and Nunn’s brilliant leadership, honesty and integ-
rity, perseverance against long odds, intellectual contributions, wisdom, po-
litical acumen, and bipartisan spirit. It was an easy speech to give because I
had two years’ worth of great material to use. I talked about how their efforts
would overcome problems that had plagued the military for decades and pave
the way for a far-reaching revitalization of the armed forces. I also said how
proud and honored their staff was to have served them in this historic under-
taking. I then read the inscription in Goldwater’s book, which included: “Your
victory is now recognized as a great one, but only in the future will the magni-
tude of its greatness be fully understood and appreciated.” To Nunn, we wrote
that the legislation “would not have been possible without your outstanding
leadership.”
The two senators responded with their own observations about the legis-
lation, the struggle to produce it, and their remarkable partnership. They also
thanked the staff for their exceptional efforts. After these presentations, a Sen-
ate photographer took pictures. Normally, that would have ended a Senate cer-
emony. But Goldwater, Nunn, and their staff lingered. We all knew that this
was our last gathering, the end of a once-in-a-lifetime experience that each of
us cherished. Like a military unit getting ready to break up after a war, we
wanted to relive one final time the skirmishes and crises of the past two years.
We enjoyed telling story after story. Goldwater’s telephone call to the navy’s
Defeat Reorganization Office. Nunn’s devastating attacks on Lehman’s and
Kelley’s testimony. The Senate floor speeches. The retreat at Fort A. P. Hill. The
briefing to Weinberger at the Pentagon. The surprising unanimous vote in com-
mittee. After we had shared every story and enjoyed every laugh, we could not
delay the end any longer. Warmly congratulating each other, we shook hands
one last time and departed.
As I walked back to my office through the marbled halls of the Russell Sen-
ate Office Building, my mind shifted to the future. My own prospects were
clouded. My relations with many Republican senators and staffers would never
recover from the bruising reorganization fight. Goldwater’s retirement left me
exposed to ill feelings.
These worries were dwarfed by my excitement that the act was now law. I
expected that the Pentagon’s implementation would encounter rough spots,
but I was confident that Admiral Crowe and other senior officers—then and in
the future—would find the right path. They now had the edge to overcome the
parochialism of service supremacists. As the far-reaching reforms took effect, I
was convinced they would greatly improve the military’s warfighting capabili-
ties, enable the services to adapt more effectively to new challenges, and intro-
duce a new era. The Goldwater-Nichols Act completed the reorganization efforts
started eighty-five years earlier in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War.
It finally corrected the distortions of power and influence that emerged during
World War II and had troubled U.S. security for forty years thereafter.
As I reached my office and turned the handle of Room SR-’s massive
door, I was exhilarated by anticipation. I could not wait to watch the Goldwater-
Nichols Act revitalize and transform the military and improve the odds for
American service members put in harm’s way.
Epilogue: Unified at Last 437
Epilogue
Unified at Last
Sound structure will permit the release of energies
and of imagination now unduly constrained by the
existing arrangements.
—Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, 1983
D espite negative Pentagon attitudes, the Senate and House Armed Services
Committees and other reorganization supporters had high expectations
for the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Have results matched these expectations? Com-
paring the Department of Defense’s performance since  with congressional
objectives provides a useful yardstick for assessing the act’s contributions.
In reorganizing DoD, Congress’ overarching concern centered on the ex-
cessive influence of the four services, which had inhibited the integration of
their separate capabilities into effective joint fighting units. With its desire to
balance joint and service interests as the backdrop, Congress declared nine
purposes for the act: strengthen civilian authority; improve military advice;
place clear responsibility on combatant commanders for accomplishment of
assigned missions; ensure that the authority of combatant commanders is
commensurate with their responsibility; increase attention to strategy
formulation and contingency planning; provide for the more efficient use of
resources; improve joint officer management; enhance the effectiveness of
military operations; and improve DoD management.1 Some objectives were
more important than others. Congress gave priority to fixing problems in DoD’s
operational dimension: military advice, responsibility and authority of combatant
commanders, contingency planning, joint officer management, and the
effectiveness of military operations.
Congress found numerous obstacles impeding effective civilian authority.
Members agreed with John Kester’s characterization of the secretary of de-
fense: “His real authority is not as great as it seems, and his vast responsibilities
are not in reality matched by commensurate powers.”2
Congress saw the secretary’s efforts being “seriously hampered by the ab-
sence of . . . independent military advice.” Joint Chiefs of Staff logrolling pro-
vided the secretary with watered-down advice. This forced the Office of the Sec-
retary of Defense to carry the entire burden of challenging the services on policies
and programs. The SASC staff study assessed the outcome: “The natural conse-
quence has been a heightening of civil-military disagreement, an isolation of
OSD, a loss of information critical to effective decision-making, and, most im-
portantly, a political weakening of the secretary of defense and his OSD staff.
The overall result of interservice logrolling has been a highly undesirable less-
ening of civilian control of the military.”3
Confusion concerning the roles of the military department secretaries
ranked next on Congress’ list of problems hampering the defense secretary’s
authority. The National Security Act of  never defined the new secretary’s
relationship to the service secretaries. Bitter controversy over unification pre-
cluded clarification. The  law preserved considerable independence for the
civilian heads of the military departments. Subsequent amendments strength-
ened the defense secretary’s power and staff, but they did not prescribe his rela-
tionship to the service secretaries. Not surprisingly, service secretaries ener-
getically advocated parochial positions, frequently at the expense of their boss’
broader agenda.
Three Goldwater-Nichols prescriptions were most important in address-
ing these problems. First, to leave no doubt as to the defense secretary’s au-
thority, report language declared, “The secretary has sole and ultimate power
within the Department of Defense on any matter on which the secretary chooses
to act.”4 Congress meant this to end claims by defense officials to jurisdictions
independent of the secretary’s authority.
Second, Congress envisioned that making the JCS chairman the principal
military adviser would provide the secretary a military ally who shared a de-
partment-wide, nonparochial perspective. Capitol Hill foresaw this alliance
ending the civil-military nature of Pentagon disputes.
Third, the law specified each service secretary’s responsibility to the
defense secretary. These provisions filled a void that had existed for nearly forty
years.
By empowering the secretary of defense to more effectively lead and man-

age the department, the Goldwater-Nichols Act achieved the objective of
strengthening civilian authority. Disputes over the secretary’s authority have
ended; he is viewed as the ultimate power. Richard B. Cheney, the first defense
secretary to fight a war under Goldwater-Nichols, found that “each service
wants to do its own thing.” He observed that “the Department of Defense is
difficult enough to run without going back to a system that, in my mind, served
to weaken the civilian authority of the secretary and the president. . . .
Goldwater-Nichols helped pull it together in a coherent fashion so that it func-
tions much better . . . than it ever did before.”5
Despite Cheney’s valid assertion, Goldwater-Nichols’s impact on civilian
authority has received more criticism than any other area. Critics claim that
the enhanced role of the JCS chairman and improved Joint Staff capabilities
have led “to the erosion of civilian control of the military.” These naysayers do
not suggest that the revitalized military is disobedient or making major deci-
sions. They worry instead about “the relative weight or influence of the mili-
tary in the decisions the government makes.”6
There is no doubt that the Joint Staff now overshadows OSD, diminishing
the civilian voice in the decision-making process. Two trends have produced
this result: the improved quality of Joint Staff work and a weaker performance
by OSD. Ineffective leadership in a fast-paced environment and inattention to
personnel matters have contributed to OSD’s decline. As worrisome as this im-
balance may be, it does not match the seriousness of the more overt challenges
to civilian authority during the pre-Goldwater-Nichols era. Then, the military
often resisted the authority of the defense secretary. As Cheney noted,
Goldwater-Nichols helped overcome that problem. Now the concern is that offic-
ers are helping the secretary too much by providing better, more timely infor-
mation and more powerful ideas than their civilian counterparts.
The solution to this problem is not to weaken military staff work but to
improve civilian contributions. Changes in law are not needed to achieve this
outcome. The defense secretary already has sufficient authority to take the re-
quired actions. Creating a dynamic leadership culture and building a highly
qualified civilian workforce are demanding, long-term tasks. Of the failure to
act, Eliot Cohen advised, “It is the civilians, not the soldiers, who have abdi-
cated their responsibilities.”7
Recalling pre- military advice, Gen. Colin Powell, the first JCS chair-
man to fight a war under Goldwater-Nichols, observed that “almost the only
way” previous chiefs reached agreement on advice was “by scratching each
other’s back,” while the Joint Staff “spent thousands of man-hours pumping
out ponderous, least-common-denominator documents that every chief would
accept but few secretaries of defense or presidents found useful.” This partly
explains “why the Joint Chiefs had never spoken out with a clear voice to pre-
vent the deepening morass in Vietnam.”8
In response to inadequate military advice, Congress crafted some of the
Goldwater-Nichols Act’s most far-reaching provisions. The act made the JCS
chairman the principal military adviser, transferred to him the duties previ-
ously performed by the corporate JCS, and added new duties. To assist the chair-
man, Congress created the position of vice chairman as the second-ranking
officer. Last, Congress gave the chairman full authority over the Joint Staff.
A comprehensive assessment concluded that the act “made a significant
and positive contribution in improving the quality of military advice,” a judg-
ment shared by principal customers. Cheney said he regarded the chairman’s
uncompromised advice “a significant improvement” over the “lowest common
denominator.” Powell’s successor as JCS chairman, Gen. John M. Shalikashvili,
agreed, “We have been able to provide far better, more focused advice.”9
Former navy secretary John Lehman disagreed with these assessments and
the designation of the JCS chairman as principal military adviser. Repeating his
mid-s arguments, he said the chairman’s role has “limited not only the
scope of military advice available to the political leadership, but also the policy-
and priority-setting roles of the service chiefs and civilian service secretaries.”10
Congress found pre- operational chains of command confused and
cumbersome. The chain of command roles of the defense secretary and JCS
were unclear. Despite removal of the military departments from the chain in
, service chiefs retained de facto influence over combatant commands, in-
creasing the confusion.
To achieve its objective of placing clear responsibility on combatant com-
manders, Capitol Hill clarified the chain of command to each commander and
emphasized each commander’s responsibility to the president and secretary of
defense for mission performance. The Goldwater-Nichols Act directed that the
chain of command run from the president to the secretary of defense to the
combatant commander. The JCS, including the chairman, were explicitly
removed.
Opinion is universal that this objective has been achieved. Senior officials
and officers have repeatedly cited the benefits of a clear, short operational chain
of command. Commenting on Operation Desert Storm, Gen. H. Norman
Schwarzkopf stated, “Goldwater-Nichols established very, very clear lines of
command authority and responsibilities over subordinate commanders, and
that meant a much more effective fighting force.” Secretary of Defense Bill Perry
recalled that commentaries and after-action reports were unanimous in attrib-
uting that war’s success “to the fundamental structural changes in the chain
of command brought about by Goldwater-Nichols.”11
Congress found the combatant commands weak, unified in name only. They
were loose confederations of powerful service components and forces. The ser-
vices used Unified Action Armed Forces, which established policies for joint op-
erations, to restrict the authority of the combatant commander and give sig-
nificant autonomy to his service component commanders.
To correct this violation of command principles, Congress modeled the law
on the authority that the military had traditionally given to a unit commander.
The Goldwater-Nichols Act empowered each combatant commander to give
authoritative direction, prescribe the chain of command, organize commands
and forces, employ forces, assign command functions to subordinate command-
ers, coordinate and approve aspects of administration and support, select and
suspend subordinates, and convene courts-martial.
Service claims that the legislation would make warlords of the combatant
commanders quickly ended as the soundness of balancing authority and re-
sponsibility at the combatant commander level—in line with military tradi-
tion—became apparent. Agreement is widespread that Goldwater-Nichols has
ensured commensurate authority for combatant commanders. “This act,” said
Shalikashvili, “by providing both the responsibility and the authority needed
by the CINCs, has made the combatant commanders vastly more capable of
fulfilling their warfighting role.”12 Performance of these commands in opera-
tions and peacetime activities convincingly supports this judgment.
A minority view urges increased authority for combatant commanders
through a greater resource-allocation role. Not wanting to divert these com-
mands from their principal warfighting function, Congress intended that the
JCS chairman and Joint Staff would represent their resource needs. To many,
this approach continued to remain preferable to schemes that would require
greater involvement by the commands. Recent JCS chairman Gen. Henry H.
Shelton agreed: “More involvement by the combatant commanders in
resourcing would not be healthy. We want to keep them focused on war-
fighting.”13
In formulating Goldwater-Nichols, the two Armed Services Committees
determined that strategic and contingency planning in DoD were under-
emphasized and ineffective. Because strategic planning was often fiscally un-
constrained, it was also unrealistic. Moreover, strategy and resource allocation
were weakly linked. Contingency plans had limited utility in crises; often they
were based on invalid political assumptions.
To highlight strategy making and contingency planning, Congress formu-
lated four principal Goldwater-Nichols provisions. First, it directed the president
to submit an annual report on national security strategy. Second, it instructed
the JCS chairman to prepare fiscally constrained strategic plans. Third, the act
required the defense secretary to provide written policy guidance, including
political assumptions, for preparation and review of contingency plans. The
fourth provision directed the under secretary of defense for policy to assist the
secretary on contingency plans.
Prior to Goldwater-Nichols, the JCS had so jealously guarded nonnuclear

contingency plans that the only civilian briefed on them was the defense secre-
tary. Additional civilian access was denied to prevent civilian “meddling” in
operational matters and leaks—civilians weren’t trusted with sensitive mate-
rial. Alone, the secretary could not provide meaningful review or direction.
The absence of rigorous civilian review led to plans based on unrealistic as-
sumptions, sharply limiting their utility.14
Goldwater-Nichols increased attention to both strategy making and con-
tingency planning. The quality of strategy documents has varied, but in every
case their value has been superior to those predating Goldwater-Nichols.
Contingency planning consists of two categories: deliberate plans and cri-
sis action plans. Deliberate plans are prepared for all potential wars and major
crises and updated every year or so. Crisis action plans respond to unexpected
crises, such as the famine in Somalia in . Contingency planning improve-
ments have occurred almost exclusively in the deliberate planning category. In
, Shalikashvili saw advances: “Our major war plans . . . are the best I have
seen.” Five years later, his successor, General Shelton, cited additional progress:
“We have been able to better integrate the political-military, coalition, and in-
teragency aspects into our plans.” OSD eased into its oversight responsibilities,
seeking to reassure a nervous joint system. A retired three-star general was
hired to head the civilian review office, which was staffed by active-duty officers.
A single civilian sat between the general and his staff. The office did not conduct
its first contingency plan review until ; a year later, it had established a
comprehensive review regime. Civilian involvement has increased, but military
officers still dominate “civilian” review.15
For crisis action plans, progress on improving civilian review has been ex-
tremely limited. The joint chiefs have used traditional arguments of civilian
meddling and untrustworthiness to deny access beyond the secretary, deputy
secretary, and under secretary for policy. Occasionally, the price for the absence
of rigorous civilian review is staggering: military planners failed to plan for
postoperation law and order and restoration of government services in Opera-
tion Just Cause, the invasion of Panama in . Lawlessness, looting, and slow
recovery tarnished the operation’s success. In modern conflicts and crises, policy
and operations intertwine. The department’s practice of separating them ig-
nores the intent of Goldwater-Nichols, blocks essential collaboration between
policy and operational planners, and will continue to produce unsatisfactory
results.
Mid-s testimony before Congress revealed that DoD’s ambiguous stra-
tegic goals gave service interests, not strategic needs, the dominant role in allo-
cating resources. The lack of an independent military assessment of service
programs and budgets also impaired the secretary of defense’s resource man-
agement.
To achieve its objective of providing for more efficient use of resources,

Congress turned to the JCS chairman for the lacking independent military per-
spective, assigning him six new resource-related duties. Two important ones
were advising the secretary on combatant command priorities and assessing
conformation of programs and budgets of the military departments and other
defense components with strategic plans and combatant command priorities.
The chairman was also empowered to recommend alternative programs and
budgets.
The potential of resource allocation reforms has been realized only once,
when General Powell used his new resource advisory role in  to formulate
the Base Force. Reducing the Cold War force structure by  percent repre-
sented DoD’s most important and difficult resource issue since the passage of
Goldwater-Nichols, so Powell’s contribution was not insignificant. Besides this
critical contribution, JCS chairmen have yet to provide definitive resource ad-
vice to defense secretaries.
The chairman has mechanisms for developing advice on resource alloca-
tion to best meet joint warfighting needs. Admiral William A. Owens, while
serving as JCS vice chairman, instituted several innovative changes improving
support by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) for the formula-
tion of resource advice. The council—consisting of the vice chairman and the
four service vice chiefs—advises the chairman on requirements and acquisi-
tion. Owens introduced Joint Warfighting Capabilities Assessments (JWCAs),
which cover such areas as sea, air, and space superiority and strategic mobility
and sustainment, to assist the JROC in analyzing department-wide resource
needs and priorities.
The JWCAs offer dramatic improvements in comparing service programs
against mission requirements. Unfortunately, the JROC operates by consen-
sus—just like the old Joint Chiefs of Staff. At a time when the Defense Depart-
ment needs decisive priorities and tradeoffs, the JROC simply rubber-stamps
service initiatives. Owens acknowledged that decisions still “squander enor-
mous funds.”16
Instead of informing the chairman’s independent advice, the JROC
prenegotiates the old logrolling way. The military has come full circle to the
wasteful, bad old days. Its approach could result in the services locking arms
on major resource issues to politically overpower the defense secretary and
Congress. When the JCS chairman permits these activities and surrenders his
independent perspective, he abandons the intentions of Goldwater-Nichols. If
such practices go uncorrected, Congress will need to act.
On joint officer issues, Congress concluded: “For the most part, military
officers do not want to be assigned to joint duty; are pressured or monitored for
loyalty by their services while serving on joint assignments; are not prepared
by either education or experience to perform their joint duties; and serve for
only a relatively short period once they have learned their jobs.”17 Because the
Joint Staff and combatant command headquarters staffs are the preeminent
military staffs, Capitol Hill found this situation intolerable.
Title IV of the Goldwater-Nichols Act established procedures for the selec-
tion, education, assignment, and promotion of joint-duty officers. Congress
and the Pentagon fought the last Goldwater-Nichols battles over this title. The
services resisted a joint officer personnel system because loss of absolute con-
trol of officer promotions and assignments would weaken their domination of
the Pentagon. Congress was equally determined to eliminate a system in which
“joint thinkers are likely to be punished, and service promoters are likely to be
rewarded.”18
The joint officer incentives, requirements, and standards prescribed by
Goldwater-Nichols have significantly improved the performance of joint duty.
Cheney judged that requiring joint duty “prior to moving into senior leader-
ship positions turned out to be beneficial.” He also felt that joint officer policies
made the Joint Staff “an absolutely vital part of the operation.” Powell judged
that the Joint Staff had “improved so dramatically” it had become “the premier
military staff in the world.” General Schwarzkopf commented that Goldwater-
Nichols “changed dramatically” the quality of people “assigned to Central Com-
mand at all levels.”19
These positive results were achieved despite the indifference of OSD, senior
joint officers, and the Joint Staff, as well as efforts by the services to minimize title
IV’s impact. The JCS chairman at the time of Goldwater-Nichols’s enactment,
Admiral Crowe, later wrote of his unfavorable view of title IV: “The detailed
legislation that mandated every aspect of the ‘Joint Corps’ from the selection
process and the number of billets to promotional requirements was, I believed,
a serious mistake that threatened a horrendous case of congressional
micromanagement. In this instance the chiefs were unanimous in their oppo-
sition, and I agreed with them wholeheartedly.” Not surprisingly, for many years,
Joint Staff implementation reflected this sympathy toward service attitudes. “We
probably have not advanced as far or as fast as we could have had more atten-
tion been directed toward joint officer management,” admitted Shelton.20
The initiative of individual officers accounts for the success of the joint
officer provisions. Seeing joint duty as career enhancing, qualified officers vig-
orously pursue joint assignments.
Congress had hoped that DoD, after several years of implementing title IV,
would develop a better approach to joint officer management. That has not
occurred. The Goldwater-Nichols objective of improving joint officer manage-
ment has been achieved, but the Pentagon still lacks a vision of its needs for
joint officers and how to prepare and reward them.
For forty years after World War II, service parochialism and independence
denied DoD the unity of effort required to wage modern warfare. Congress found
that the “operational deficiencies evident during the Vietnam War, the seizure
of the Pueblo, the Iranian hostage rescue mission, and the incursion into
Grenada were the result of the failure to adequately implement the concept of
unified command.”21 To enhance the effectiveness of military operations, Con-
gress’ principal fix was to provide combatant commanders sufficient authority
to ensure unity of command during operations and effective mission prepara-
tion. The Goldwater-Nichols Act also assigned to the JCS chairman responsi-
bility for developing joint doctrine and joint training policies.
Overwhelming successes in Operations Just Cause in Panama and Desert
Shield/Storm in the Persian Gulf region showed that the act had quickly uni-
fied American fighting forces. Of this improved performance, Powell said,
“Goldwater-Nichols deserves much of the credit.” Malcolm Forbes commented:
“The extraordinary efficient, smooth way our military has functioned in the
Gulf is a tribute to . . . the Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization Act, which shifted
power from individual military services to officials responsible for coordinating
them. . . . The extraordinary achievements of Secretary Cheney and Generals
Powell and Schwarzkopf would not have been possible without Goldwater-
Nichols.” An article in Washington Monthly added, “Goldwater-Nichols helped
38. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (left to right), Defense Secretary

Richard Cheney, Pres. George Bush, and Gen. Colin Powell.
(DoD photo by R. D. Ward.)
ensure that this war had less interservice infighting, less deadly bureaucracy,
fewer needless casualties, and more military cohesion than any major opera-
tion in decades.”22
Speaking in , Secretary Perry observed that Goldwater-Nichols “dra-
matically changed the way that America’s forces operate by streamlining the
command process and empowering the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and the unified commanders.” It produced “the resounding success of our forces
in Desert Storm, in Haiti, and . . . in Bosnia.”23
Joint doctrine and training have experienced more modest progress, espe-
cially in the early years. In , General Shalikashvili said: “While we have
some joint doctrine, it is really in its infancy, at best. It is not well-vetted; it is not
well-understood at all; and it is certainly not disseminated out there. And most
certainly, it is almost never used by anyone.” The JCS chairman, calling joint
training “an embarrassment,” said, “We have an awful long way to go to bring
us into the st century.” A year later, the Commission on Roles and Missions
characterized the first generation of joint doctrine as “a compendium of com-
peting and sometimes incompatible concepts (often developed by one ‘lead’
service.)”24 Attention has been given to these shortcomings, particularly joint
training, which has benefited from establishment of the Joint Forces Command,
Joint Training System, and Joint Warfighting Center.
The Joint Forces Command’s role as the joint force integrator, trainer, pro-
vider, and experimenter has great potential for enhancing the effectiveness of
military operations. To date, parochial attitudes by the services and some geo-
graphic unified commands and weak Joint Staff support have hamstrung the
Joint Forces Command’s progress. Inadequate resourcing has hindered the
command’s work. To carry DoD to the next level of jointness, Shelton argued,
“The Joint Forces Command needs a funding line and acquisition authority.”
Shelton also believed that DoD should use a joint budget account to fund all
joint activities rather than continuing to rely on funding by service executive
agents. Mike Donley asserted that the executive agent system “has left the ser-
vices with too much influence over joint funding priorities.”25
Shelton recommended another dramatic change: “The next big step in
jointness is to establish standing joint task forces and recognize that capability
as a required core competency. We need to have the organization, training, and
equipment that will allow us to move rapidly, have a common operational pic-
ture, and conduct rapid decisive operations as a joint force. That’s a Ph.D. level
of warfighting which you can’t do with our current pickup team approach.
We should designate four standing joint task force headquarters: East Coast,
West Coast, Hawaii, and Europe.”26
Despite remaining work, improvements in joint warfighting capabilities
have been swift and dramatic. In , Senator Nunn asserted, “The Pentagon’s
ability to prepare for and conduct joint operations has improved more in ten
years—since passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act—than in the entire period

since the need for jointness was recognized by the creation of the Joint Army-
Navy Board in .” Shalikashvili saw similar progress: “No other nation can
match our ability to combine forces on the battlefield and fight jointly.”27 This
was demonstrated at the small-unit level during the Afghanistan phase of the
war on terrorism: army Special Forces soldiers directed punishing air force and
navy air-strikes.
A few critics, mostly retired marines, have disputed these views. Retired
colonel Mackubin T. Owens Jr. argued: “The contributions of the Goldwater-
Nichols Act to the improved performance of the U.S. Armed Forces are marginal
at best, and . . . the unintended consequences of the act may well create problems
in the future that outweigh any current benefits.” Lieutenant General Paul K.
Van Riper, USMC (Ret.), warned: “The path to ‘jointness’ some are advocating
has grave implications for national defense. . . . The organizational structures
brought about by Goldwater-Nichols are not necessarily appropriate for the
future.”28
Many Goldwater-Nichols provisions helped improve the department’s man-
agement. But, in adding this objective, Congress had in mind specific struc-
tural problems hindering sound management, including excessive supervisory
spans of control, unnecessary staff layers and duplication of effort, continued
growth in headquarters staffs, poor supervision of defense agencies, and an
unclear division of work among defense components.
The secretary of defense’s span of control especially concerned Congress.
Forty-one officials and officers, excluding his deputy and personal staff, reported
directly to him. To reduce this span, Goldwater-Nichols required the secretary
to delegate the supervision of each defense agency and field activity to a senior
civilian or the JCS chairman. The chairman’s role as overseer of the combatant
commands also lightened the secretary’s supervisory burdens.
Other provisions consolidated certain functions in the military department
secretariats, limited the number of service deputy and assistant chiefs of staff,
reduced by  percent the number of personnel and general and flag officers in
the military department headquarters, and reduced certain other staffs by 
or  percent.
Yet such remedies were largely ineffective. The defense bureaucracy remains
far too large. Duplication of effort continues. Defense agencies—some with ex-
penditures larger than the biggest defense contractors—receive negligible guid-
ance or oversight. The department still lacks a concept for the appropriate divi-
sion of work among components.
Beyond the unfinished business of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, DoD faces other
organizational challenges. The act’s strengthening of the JCS, Joint Staff, and
combatant commands has produced dramatic results in one of the department’s
two dimensions: warfighting. Reforms of business activities—performed prin-

cipally by OSD, the military departments, and defense agencies—have been
fewer and less successful. This dimension requires rigorous attention.
Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen attempted to provide this attention with
his Defense Reform Initiative, launched in . Cohen envisioned “igniting a
revolution in business affairs within DoD that will bring to the department man-
agement techniques and business practices that have restored American cor-
porations to leadership in the marketplace.”29
But the Defense Reform Initiative has focused on the lesser challenges of
Cohen’s revolution. The department needs to elevate the initiative’s sights to
major shortcomings. Of organizations like the Pentagon, business guru John
Kotter wrote: “The typical twentieth-century organization has not operated well
in a rapidly changing environment. Structure, systems, practices, and culture
have often been more of a drag on change than a facilitator. If environmental
volatility continues to increase, as most people now predict, the standard orga-
nization of the twentieth century will likely become a dinosaur.”30
The Pentagon’s change-resistant culture represents its greatest organiza-
tional weakness. Because of the Pentagon’s immense success in wars cold and
hot, it suffers from the “failure of success.” It is an invincible giant who has
fallen asleep. Given past successes, the Pentagon cannot break its embrace of
past warfighting concepts and traditional weapon systems, as Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld found in early  during his troubled efforts to
transform the military. This attachment leads to “preparing to fight the last
war over again.” Two business scholars observed, “Yesterday’s winning formula
ossifies into today’s conventional wisdom before petrifying into tomorrow’s
tablets of stone.”31
According to internal critics, long-range Pentagon plans “are not charac-
terized by new operational concepts, or a new vision of how we might conduct
military operations, or how we might respond to the wide array of possible future
challenges.” The department’s plans for physical capital “largely continue the
production of articles and polish ideas that triumphed during the Cold War.”32
The Defense Department’s change-resistant culture was less troubling dur-
ing the relatively stable Cold War. But the twenty-first century world is experi-
encing an unprecedented rate of change. Michael Hammer explains that
“change is happening exponentially. It’s not that every bit of additional knowl-
edge adds a little more change to the world. But rather, because it interacts
with all the other knowledge and experience that we already have in so many
domains, it has a cumulative effect. That’s why the rate of change has become
so astounding.”33 To anticipate and adapt to change, DoD needs to employ the
change-enabling techniques of successful American businesses, like strategic
visioning and a renewal process.
The Pentagon is choking on bureaucracy. The corporate headquarters to-
tals thirty thousand, and staffs within twenty-five miles of the Pentagon swell
to ,. Each military department has two headquarters staffs (three in the
navy)—one civilian and one military—sharing one mission. This duplicative
structure, which originated in World War II, cannot be justified in a fast-paced
environment. If DoD merged these staffs, it could greatly improve efficiency
and effectiveness. There has been movement on this issue: in December, ,
the army and air force announced their intention to merge their two
headquarters staffs.
The Pentagon’s bureaucratic bloat creates enormous friction and increases
time and energy expended. As the pace and complexity of work have increased,
the department has added staff rather than adopting new, efficient work prac-
tices. In particular, the Pentagon makes poor use of horizontal process teams—
multifunctional groupings of experts given a single set of objectives and
empowered to produce results. Businesses find that such teams produce better
results with  percent of the effort. The Pentagon continues to rely on out-
moded hierarchical approaches based on the archaic premise that “all wisdom
resides at the top.” Peter Senge notes that such approaches produce “massive
institutional breakdown and massive failure of the centralized nervous system
of hierarchical authoritarian institutions in the face of growing interdepen-
dence and accelerating change.”34
The department’s focus on inputs rather than outcomes further hinders
its performance. The Pentagon is organized along functional lines, such as re-
search and engineering, intelligence, and health affairs. Organization special-
ists understand that a functional structure leads to an input focus that hinders
integration of diverse inputs to produce desired outcomes, such as mission ca-
pabilities. The input categories of the Future Years Defense Plan, the
department’s accounting system, reinforce these tendencies.
The department also faces organizational challenges in its external envi-
ronment. The Pentagon must strengthen its ability to work with other govern-
ment departments and agencies. Contemporary crises are complex. They have
military, diplomatic, economic, law enforcement, technological, and informa-
tion dimensions. As Senator Nunn said, “The old days of the Pentagon doing
the entire mission are gone for good.”35 Successful peacetime preparation and
crisis management require the effective integration of many, diverse capabilities
and unity of effort across the government. This is especially true for homeland
security, where weak cross-government coordination was painfully revealed
by the terrorist attacks on September , . Two recent JCS chairmen,
Generals Shalikashvili and Shelton, have recognized the need for better
interagency harmonization. But the department is still too wedded to its tradi-
tional go-it-alone attitude. The need for improved national security planning
and coordination across many departments and agencies has produced calls
for a Goldwater-Nichols II to reform the interagency system.
The Pentagon must also learn how to work more effectively with interna-
tional organizations like the United Nations and nongovernmental organiza-
tions like the Red Cross. Both will play significant roles in future crises and
often interact with American military forces.
The Goldwater-Nichols Act ended a forty-five-year struggle to produce a uni-

fied military establishment. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a new
set of organizational changes is needed. Hopefully, the act has provided the
tools and experience to enable a timely response by the Pentagon.
In the broad sweep of American military history, the post-Goldwater-
Nichols era has been remarkable for the number and scope of significant DoD
achievements and successes. Superb leadership played an important role, as
did doctrine, training, education, and hardware developments. Nevertheless, a
significant body of evidence and numerous assertions by senior officials and
officers argue that the Goldwater-Nichols Act enormously contributed to these
positive outcomes.
The act has attained most of the objectives established for it, helping to
transform and revitalize the American military profession in the process.
Goldwater-Nichols succeeded most in joint warfighting areas, to which Con-
gress had given its highest priority. In some areas, act-inspired developments
are still evolving and adding further luster to the legislation’s achievements. In
others, much remains to be done.
Secretary Perry used a historic yardstick to praise the legislation, calling
the Goldwater-Nichols Act “perhaps the most important defense legislation
since World War II.” Admiral Owens saw the legislation in larger terms:
“Goldwater-Nichols was the watershed event for the military since the second
World War.” In line with congressional expectations, the Goldwater-Nichols
Act has profoundly improved the military’s performance and warfighting ca-
pabilities. Even some critics have praised the act. In , Gen. John Wickham
said, “It has achieved eighty percent of its objectives and will go down in his-
tory as a major contribution to the nation’s security.”36 That’s high praise from
a former opponent.
NOTES
Abbreviations
a.n. accession number

AFJ Armed Forces Journal
ADB Private Papers of Archie D. Barrett, Monterey, Calif.
BMG Barry M. Goldwater Collection, Arizona Historical Foundation,
Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.
CMH U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, Washington,
D.C.
CNO Records of Chief of Naval Operations, Operational Archives, Naval
Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.
DDEL Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans.
DJB Private Papers of David J. Berteau, Washington, D.C.
Donley Private Papers of Michael B. Donley, Springfield, Va.
GPO U.S. Government Printing Office
JCS Official Files of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Archives and Records
Administration, College Park, Md.
JFQ Joint Force Quarterly
JGT John G. Tower Papers, A. Frank Smith Jr. Library Center, Southwestern
University, Georgetown, Tex.
JFL John F. Lehman Jr. Papers, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center,
Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.
JRL James R. Locher III Papers, Special Collections, National Defense Univer-
sity Library, George C. Marshall Hall, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C.
JWD John W. Douglass Papers, RRL
MBD Michael B. Donley Papers, RRL
NYT New York Times
OPNAV Records of Chief of Naval Operations, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
(Plans, Policy, and Operations), Strategic Concepts Branch (OP-)/Stra-
tegic Concepts Group (Op-), boxes , , , , Operational Archives,
Naval Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.
RDF Papers of Richard D. Finn Jr., included in the James R. Locher III Papers
RRL Ronald Reagan Library, Simi Valley, Calif.
SASC Official Files of the Senate Armed Services Committee, th Congress, Gold-
water-Nichols DoD Reorganization, boxes –, National Archives and
Records Administration, Center for Legislative Archives, Washington, D.C.
SD Official Records of the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary, and the
Executive Secretary to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense,
452 Notes to Pages 3–10
National Archives and Records Administration, Washington National

Records Center, Suitland, Md.
PSt Private Papers of Peggy Stelpflug, Auburn, Ala.
PSS Paul Schott Stevens Papers, RRL
TJC Private Papers of Theodore J. Crackel, Special Collections, National De-
fense University Library, George C. Marshall Hall, Fort McNair, Washing-
ton, D.C.
USN&WR U.S. News & World Report
WFN William F. Nichols Papers, Special Collections, Ralph Brown Draughon
Library, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala.
WKB Private Papers of William K. Brehm, McLean, Va.
WP Washington Post
WSJ Wall Street Journal
Prologue. Turf, Power, Service
This chapter reconstructs the February , , meeting from Goldwater’s description
in his autobiography, Goldwater; Carter’s notes; Finn’s notes; a one-page paper,
“Chiefs’ Objections,” prepared immediately after the meeting by the author and Finn;
a five-page paper, “Meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” prepared by the author in
the fall of ; a February , , letter from each joint chief to Goldwater
restating the views he presented at the meeting; interviews of eight participants:
Goldwater, Nunn, Crowe, Wickham, Carter, DeBobes, Finn, and Smith; and an inter-
view with Col. Richard Witherspoon, the Army Staff action officer for reorganization.
. Gen. John A. Wickham Jr. to Barry Goldwater, Feb. , , box , folder
“Wickham Letter—//,” SASC.
. Ibid.
. Richard D. DeBobes during author interview of Sam Nunn, July , ;
Powell F. Carter Jr., author interview, Aug. , .
. Wickham to Goldwater.
. Gen. John A. Wickham Jr., author interview, May , ; Richard H.
Witherspoon, author interview, December .
. William J. Crowe Jr. with David Chanoff, The Line of Fire: From Washington to the
Gulf, the Politics and Battles of the New Military (New York: Simon and Schuster, ),
.
. Barry M. Goldwater with Jack Casserly, Goldwater (New York: Doubleday, ),
.
. Gen. P. X. Kelley to Barry Goldwater, Feb. , , box , folder “Kelley Let-
ter—//,” SASC.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, ; Carter interview.
. Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., author interview, April , .
. Adm. James D. Watkins to Barry Goldwater, Feb. , , box , folder
“Watkins Letter—//,” SASC.
. Kelley to Goldwater.
. Carter interview.
Notes to Pages 10–17 453
. Watkins to Goldwater.

. Kelley to Goldwater.
. Author’s recollection confirmed by Nunn.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Ibid., ; Wickham interview.
. Colin Powell to Jim Locher, Feb. , , box , folder, “Weinberger Letter—
//,” SASC.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. DeBobes comments about the service chiefs near reorganization’s end: “I
was struck by how little the chiefs knew about other issues that were related to
the Goldwater-Nichols Act, how uninformed they were.” (author interview, May ,
).
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Nunn interview.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Ibid., .
. Nunn interview.
Chapter 1. The Rise of Service Supremacists

. Archie D. Barrett, Reappraising Defense Organization: An Analysis Based on the
Defense Organization Study of – (Washington: NDU Press, ), xix.
. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-
Military Relations, Caravelle ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ;
reprint, New York: Vintage Books, ), ; Paul Y. Hammond, Organizing for De-
fense: The American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, ; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, ),
; Roger R. Trask and Alfred Goldberg, The Department of Defense, –: Orga-
nization and Leaders (Washington: OSD, ), .
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, –; James Clotfelter, The Military in Ameri-
can Politics (New York: Harper and Row, ), –.
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, .
. Ibid., .
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, .
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, , .
. Demetrious Caraley, The Politics of Military Unification: A Study of Conflict and the
Policy Process (New York: Columbia University Press, ), –; Russell A. Alger, The
Spanish-American War (New York: Harper, ; reprint, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Li-
braries Press, ), –; Walter Millis, Arms and Men: A Study in American Mili-
tary History (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, ; reprint, New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, ), .
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, –, ; Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski,
For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York:
Free Press, ), –; James E. Hewes Jr., From Root to McNamara: Army Organi-
zation and Administration, – (Washington: CMH, ), ix, –.
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, –.

. Caraley, Politics of Military Unification, , –.
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, : Millis, Arms and Men, .
. Root, quoted in Hammond, Organizing for Defense, .
. Vernon E. Davis, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II: Organiza-
tional Development, vol. , Origin of the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff (Washington:
JCS, ), .
. Ibid., , –; Hewes, From Root to McNamara, –.
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, , .
. Ibid., , .
. Edgar F. Raines Jr. and David R. Campbell, The Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Evolution of Army Ideas on the Command, Control, and Coordination of the U.S. Armed
Forces, – (Washington: CMH, ), ; Thomas D. Boettcher, First Call: The
Making of the Modern U.S. Military, – (Boston: Little, Brown, ), , ,
–; Hammond, Organizing for Defense, .
. Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and
Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ), –.
. Davis, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, :, –.
. Ibid., :.
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, .
. Ibid., ,, , , ; Huntington, Soldier and the State, , .
. Roger Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell: Champion of Air Defense (New York:
McGraw-Hill, ), .
. Davis, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, :, –.
. Ibid., xi.
. Davis, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, :–.
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, –, –.
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, –.
. Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants,
and Their War (New York: Harper and Row, ), .
. William Frye, Marshall: Citizen Soldier (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, ), ,
.
. Ibid., .
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, .
. JCS Special Committee for Reorganization of National Defense, Report of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Special Committee for Reorganization of National Defense, Apr., ,
; Larrabee, Commander in Chief, .
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, –; –.
. Hammond, Organizing for Defense, –, –.
. Ibid., –; Boettcher, First Call, .
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, ; Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley,
Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ),
.
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, –; U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on
Military Affairs, Department of Armed Forces, Department of Military Security: Hearings
before the Committee on Military Affairs, th Cong., st sess., Oct. , , , , ,
, , and ; Nov. , , , , , , , , , , and ; and Dec. , , , , , ,
, , and , , .
. Victor Lasky, J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth (New York: Macmillan, ), facing .
. Davis, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, :–.
. Raines and Campbell, Army and the Joint Chiefs, –.
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Raines and Campbell, Army and the Joint Chiefs, –.
. Ibid., .
. JCS Special Committee, Report of the Joint Chiefs, , , .
. Raines and Campbell, Army and the Joint Chiefs, ; Larrabee, Commander in
Chief, ; Leonard Mosley, Marshall: Hero for Our Times (New York: Hearst Books,
), ; Caraley, Politics of Military Unification, –, .
. Raines and Campbell, Army and the Joint Chiefs, ; Boettcher, First Call, .
. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs of Harry S. Truman: –, Years of Trial and
Hope (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ; reprint, New York: Smithmark, ), –
; Truman, “Our Armed Forces Must Be Unified,” Collier’s, Aug. , , reprinted
in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Department of Armed Forces,
Department of Military Security, .
. Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, Organizational Development of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, – (Washington: JCS, ), ; Caraley, Politics of Military
Unification, .
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, ; Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Pa-
triot, ; Victor H. Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (An-
napolis: Naval Institute Press, ; reprint, New York: Pocket Books, ), .
. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New
York: Harper and Brothers, ), .
. Ibid.
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, ; Alice C. Cole et al., eds., The Depart-
ment of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, – (Washing-
ton: OSD, ), .
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Ibid., –.
. Caraley, Politics of Military Unification, –; Huntington, Soldier and the
State, , –.
. Huntington, Soldier and the State, –.
. Eisenhower, quoted in Cole et al., eds., Department of Defense, .
. Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking Press, ), .
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, ; Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven
Patriot, .
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Hoover Commission, quoted in Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, –.
. Eisenhower, quoted in Cole et al., eds., Department of Defense, .

. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, –.
. Committee on the Defense Establishment, Report to Senator Kennedy, Dec. ,
, .
. Ibid., –; Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row, ),
, ; Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, .
. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ), ; H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon
Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
(New York: Harper Collins, ), , –; Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story
(New York: Simon and Schuster, ), ; Sorensen, Kennedy, .
. David C. Jones, “What’s Wrong With Our Defense Establishment,” NYT Maga-
zine, Nov. , , .
. Peter P. Wallace, Military Command Authority: Constitutional, Statutory, and
Regulatory Bases (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, Center for Information Policy
Research, ), –.
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, –.
. Richard A. Gabriel, Military Incompetence: Why the American Military Doesn’t
Win (New York: Hill and Wang, ), –.
. Richard C. Steadman, Report to the Secretary of Defense on the National Military
Command Structure (Washington: GPO, ), –.
. Harold Brown, Thinking About National Security: Defense and Foreign Policy in a
Dangerous World (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, ), .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. Donald Bruce Johnson, comp., National Party Platforms of  (Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois, ), , , .
. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Reorganization Proposals
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff—: Hearings before the Investigations Subcommittee, th
Cong., st sess., HASC no. -, June , , and , , .
Chapter 2. Jones Breaks Ranks
. David C. Jones, author interview, Sept. , .

. Archie D. Barrett, author interview, Sept. , .
. Barrett quoted in Linda Head Flanagan, “The Goldwater-Nichols Act: The Poli-
tics of Defense Reorganization,” case study, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, .
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. David C. Jones and William K. Brehm, author interview, Feb. , .
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Jones also knew that the “firestorm” a year earlier over his potential dismissal
shielded him against such action.
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Military Posture and H.R. :
Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., d sess., pt. , Military
Posture, HASC no. -, .
. Raines and Campbell, Army and the Joint Chiefs, . General Marshall, the
army chief of staff at the time, picked Collins to serve as the War Department spokes-
man on unification.
. Military Posture, HASC no. -, –.
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Military Posture, HASC no. -, .
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. Military Posture, HASC no. -, –.
. David C. Jones, “Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change,” Directors & Boards
, no.  (winter, ): –.
. Flanagan, “Goldwater-Nichols Act,” .
. Frank C. Carlucci, handwritten note to David C. Jones, Jan. , , a.n. -
-, box , folder  JCS (Jan.–Apr.), SD.
. A slightly abridged version of Jones’s article appeared in Directors & Boards.
References are to the full text of the article, which appeared in Jones, “Why the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Must Change,” AFJ, Mar., , .
. John Chancellor, “Joint Chiefs Called Cumbersome,” NBC Nightly News, Feb. ,
, as reported in Radio-TV Defense Dialog, DoD, Feb. , .
. Michael Getler, “Chairman Asks Major Changes in Joint Chiefs,” WP, Feb. ,
, ; Walter S. Mossberg, “Joint Chiefs Chairman Seeks More Powers In Order to
Offset Interservice Rivalries,” WSJ, Feb. , , ; articles also appeared in the NYT,
Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer.
. Richard Halloran, “Q.&A.: Gen. David C. Jones: Retiring Chief Speaks Out on
Military Council,” NYT, Feb. , , B; Drew Middleton, “Joint Chiefs: Changes
Due,” NYT, Mar. , , D.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report on Defense Activities,” memorandum for
the president, Feb. , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Jan.–Mar.), SD.
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Undated draft attached to Weinberger, “Weekly Report on Defense Activities.”
. Caspar W. Weinberger, author interview, Oct. , .
. Lisa Myers, “Reagan to Dismiss Gen. Jones,” Washington Star, Dec. , , .
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Michael Getler, “Brown Cautions Against Ousting Joint Chiefs Head,” WP, Dec.
, , A.
. James R. Schlesinger, “The ‘Charge’ Against Gen. Jones,” WP, Jan. , ,
A.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, Fighting For Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon
(New York: Warner Books, ), .
. Edward C. Meyer quoted in Mark Perry, Four Stars: The Inside Story of the Forty-
Year Battle between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America’s Civilian Leaders (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, ), .
. Bernard Weinraub, “General Named Head of Chiefs: David Charles Jones,”
NYT, Apr. , , B.
. “He Is Exasperated with People About Half the Time,” Time, Oct. , , .
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of CSSG interview of Bob Barrow, July ,
, WKB.
. Perry, Four Stars, , .
. “Team Player for the Joint Chiefs,” Time, Apr. , , .
. Bernard Weinraub, “Joint Chiefs Losing Sway Under Carter,” NYT, July , ,
A.
. “Team Player,” .
. Fred S. Hoffman, “Gen. Jones to Be Retained As Joint Chiefs Chairman,” WP,
Feb. , , A.
. Jones, “Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change.”
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. “He Is Exasperated,” .
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Nominations of David C. Jones,
Thomas B. Hayward, and Lew Allen Jr.: Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services,
th Cong., d sess., May  and , , –.
. Jones interviews, Sept. , , and May , .
. The planning phase was named Operation Rice Bowl.
. Paul B. Ryan, The Iranian Rescue Mission: Why It Failed (Annapolis: Naval Insti-
tute Press, ), .
. Joint Staff, “Report on the Iranian Hostage Rescue Mission,” undated draft, JCS.
. The DoD definition of special operations: operations conducted by specially
organized, trained, and equipped military and paramilitary force to achieve military,
political, economic, or informational objectives by unconventional military means in
hostile, denied, or politically sensitive areas.
. Jones interview, May , .
. Special Operations Review Group, Rescue Mission Report (Washington: DoD,
), vi.
. Otto Kreisher, “Desert One,” Air Force Magazine, Jan., , .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. Ibid., .
. Ryan, Iranian Rescue Mission, –.
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. James H. Kyle, The Guts to Try: the Untold Story of the Iran Hostage Rescue Mis-
sion by the On-Scene Desert Commander (New York: Orion Books, ), .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. Jones interview, May , .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, –; Ryan, Iranian Rescue Mission, –.
. Ryan, Iranian Rescue Mission, .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, –.
. Ibid., .
. Kyle, Guts to Try, .
. Special Operations Review Group, Rescue Mission Report, .
. Jones interviews, Sept. , , and May , .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Nomination of David C. Jones:
Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, June , , –; Jones interview,
Sept. , .
. Nomination of David C. Jones, –.
. Flanagan, “Goldwater-Nichols Act,” .
. Jones interview, Sept. , .
. Ibid., May ,  (emphasis in original).
. Ibid., Sept. , .
. David C. Jones to Barry M. Goldwater, Jan. , , provided by Gerald J.
Smith.
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. Brehm interview.
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. Jones and Brehm interview; William K. Brehm to author, May , .
. William K. Brehm, “Meeting with the Chairman, JCS in regard to the Special
Study of Joint Activities, May , ,” memorandum for record, May , ,
WKB.
. William K. Brehm to author, Mar. , .
. Brehm interview.
. William K. Brehm to Richard Danzig, June , , WKB.
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Lew Allen, July , ,
WKB.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Tom Hayward, July ,
, WKB.
. Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, “Improving the Effectiveness of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff,” a concept paper forwarded by memorandum for General Jones, General Allen,
General Meyer, General Barrow, “Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Jan. , , a.n. --
, box , folder  JCS (May–Sept.), SD.
. A. S. Moreau, “JCS,” message to CNO, Dec. , ; and Capt. C. S. Campbell,
USN, “How to Reestablish the JCS as a Creditable Agency,” point paper, Dec. , ,
both in box , folder “Review of JCS Credibility,” OPNAV.
. Hayward, “Improving the Effectiveness.”
. Jerry J. Burcham, handwritten notes of meeting with Adm. Moorer, July ,
, WKB.
. William K. Brehm to Gen. David C. Jones, July , , WKB.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Bob Barrow, July ,
, WKB.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Shy [Meyer], Oct. ,
, WKB.
. Donn A. Starry, “Review of Strategic Planning,” critique of the Pentagon’s
strategic planning process, Sept. , , WKB.
. CSSG, “The JCS Organization—Talking Points—Meetings With the Service
Chiefs,” two-page outline, n.d., WKB.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meetings with Lew Allen and Perry
Smith, Dec.  and , , WKB.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Bob Barrow, Dec. ,
, WKB.
. William K. Brehm to David C. Jones, Dec. , , WKB.
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Shy [Meyer] and Jack
[Vessey], Dec. , , WKB.
. Burcham, “Meeting with CNO, December ,” typed summary of meeting,
n.d., WKB.
. Hayward, “Improving the Effectiveness.”
. Brehm to author, Mar. , .
. J. D. Hittle, “Defense Reorganization (memo #),” memorandum for Secretary
of the Navy, Sept. , , box A, folder “Personnel Issues—Hittle memos,” JFL
(emphasis in original).
. J. D. Hittle, “Defense Organization,” memorandum for Secretary of the Navy,
Oct. , , ibid.
. J. D. Hittle, “Defense Organizations,” memorandum for Secretary of the Navy,
Nov. , , ibid.
. J. D. Hittle, “Defense Reorganization,” memorandum for Secretary of the
Navy, n.d., ibid.
. Thomas B. Hayward to author, Oct. , .
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. CSSG, The Organization and Functions of the JCS: Report for the Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff (Arlington, Va.: Systems Research and Applications Corp., Apr., ).
. Brehm interview.
. Hayward to author.
. Flanagan, “Goldwater-Nichols Act,” .
. Halloran, “Q.&A.”
. William K. Brehm, handwritten notes of meeting with Dave Jones and Paul
Gorman, Jan. , , WKB.
. Jones and Brehm interview.
. Ibid.
Chapter 3. The House Fires the First Shot
. Except where otherwise noted, all quotations and observations by Archie D.

Barrett are from author interviews conducted Sept.  and Nov. , .
. United States Military Academy, The  Howitzer (New York: Comet Press,
), .
. “Darts and Laurels,” AFJ, Oct., , .
. Richard C. White, “Subcommittee to Consider Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganiza-
tion,” press release, Mar. , , ADB.
. Author interview with former HASC staff member.
. Howitzer, .
. Barrett, Reappraising Defense Organization, xix–xx.
. Ibid., .
. Archie D. Barrett to Gen. David C. Jones, Apr. , , ADB.
. Gen. David C. Jones to Archie D. Barrett, May , , ADB.
. Barrett, Reappraising Defense Organization, xxv.
. Richard Halloran, “Choice for Top U.S. Soldier,” NYT, Mar. , , B.
. Richard Halloran, “Needed: A Leader for the Joint Chiefs,” NYT, Feb. , , .
. Charles W. Corddry, “Reagan picks Vessey to head Joint Chiefs,” Baltimore Sun,
Mar. , , ; Stephen Engelberg, “Military chairman chosen ‘for leadership’,” Nor-
folk Virginian-Pilot, Mar. , , A.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report on Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, Mar. , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Jan.–
Mar.), SD.
. Corddry, “Reagan picks Vessey,” .
. Phil Gailey, “Tough Submariner for Navy’s Helm: James David Watkins,” and
Bernard Weinraub, “Fighter Pilot at the Top: Charles Alvin Gabriel,” NYT, Mar. ,
, B.
. Crowe, Line of Fire, –.
. Edward C. Meyer, “The JCS—How Much Reform Is Needed?,” AFJ, Apr., ,
–.
. Jones interview, Feb. , .
. Deborah M. Kyle and Benjamin F. Schemmer, “Navy, Marines Adamantly Op-
pose JCS Reforms Most Others Tell Congress Are Long Overdue,” AFJ, June, , .
. John W. Vessey Jr., handwritten letter to Chairman White, Dec. , , ADB.
. Caspar W. Weinberger to Melvin Price, Apr. , , a.n. --, box ,
folder  JCS (Jan.–Apr.), SD.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report on Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, Apr. , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Apr.–
May), SD.
. Quoted in Drew Middleton, “Army Chief of Staff Urges a Broad Reorganiza-
tion,” NYT, Mar. , , .
. Archie D. Barrett, author interview, Feb. , .
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Investigations Subcommittee,
Reorganization Proposals for the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Hearings before the Investigations
Subcommittee, th Cong., d sess., , HASC no. -, , .
. Ibid., –; Alan Ehrenhalt and Robert E. Healy, eds., Politics in America:
Members Of Congress in Washington and at Home,  (Washington: Congressional
Quarterly Press, ), .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, –.
. Ibid., .
. Kyle and Schemmer, “Navy, Marines Adamantly Oppose,” ; Mary Anne
Wood, “JCS Hearings,” memorandum for Secretary Weinberger, Apr. , , a.n.
--, box , folder  JCS (Jan.–Apr.), SD.
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, –.
. Kyle and Schemmer, “Navy, Marines Adamantly Oppose,” .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, .
. Ibid., .

. Kyle and Schemmer, “Navy, Marines Adamantly Oppose,” .
. Former HASC staff member interview.
. David C. Jones, “Joint Organization,” Memorandum for the Secretary of De-
fense,” June , , a.n. --, box , folder  JCS (May–Sept.), SD.
. Deborah M. Kyle, “JCS Reform Legislation Imminent,” AFJ, July, , .
. William P. Clark, “Current Hearings on the JCS System,” memorandum for
Caspar W. Weinberger, June , , a.n. --, box , folder  JCS (May–
Sept.), SD.
. Allan A. Myer, “Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” memorandum for
William P. Clark, June , , RRL.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Hearings on JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for
the president, July , ; and Mary Anne Wood, “Memorandum for the President
on JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for Secretary Weinberger, July , , both
in a.n. --, box , folder  JCS (May–Sept.), SD.
. John W. Vessey Jr., “Hearings on JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for the
secretary of defense, July , , a.n. --, box , folder  JCS (May–
Sept.), SD.
. Allan A. Myer, “JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for William P. Clark,
July , , RRL.
. William P. Clark, “Hearings on JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for the
president, Aug. , , RRL.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Nomination of John W. Vessey
Jr., to Be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Hearing before the Committee on Armed
Services, th Cong., d sess., May , , .
. Ibid., ; Kyle and Schemmer, “Navy, Marines, Adamantly Oppose,” .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, –.
. Ibid., –.
. Congress, House, Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act of , th Cong., d
sess., H.R. .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, –.
. “AFJ Talks To Congress: Richard C. White,” AFJ, Sept., , .
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, Aug. , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Aug.–
Oct.), SD.
. Former HASC staff member interview.
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Full Committee Consideration
of H.R. , th Cong., d sess., Aug. , .
. Former HASC staff member interview.
. Congress, House, Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act, H.R. , th Cong.,
d sess., Congressional Record—House (Aug. , ): –; Caspar W.
Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memorandum for the president,
Aug. , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Aug.–Oct.), SD.
. Maxwell D. Taylor, “This Is No Way to Reform the Joint Chiefs,” WP, Sept. ,
, .
. Barrett to Tim Ahern [Associated Press], Oct. , , ADB.
. John W. Vessey Jr., “JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for the secretary of
defense, Nov. , , a.n. --, box , folder  JCS (Oct.–Dec.), SD.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS),” memo-
randum for the president, Nov. , , a.n. --, box , folder  JCS
(Oct.–Dec.). SD.
. Caspar W. Weinberger to Richard C. White, Dec. , , ADB.
Chapter 4. Texas Politics
. Rhett B. Dawson, author interview, Mar. , . Dawson attended the meet-
ing during which White put his request to Tower “on a personal basis.”
. Congress, Senate, Senator Nunn of Georgia speaking for an amendment requir-
ing a JCS reorganization study, th Cong., d sess., Congressional Record—Senate
(May , ), –.
. Drew Middleton, “Army Chief of Staff Urges a Broad Reorganization,” NYT, Mar. ,
, . Tower made his quoted statement on March  to AFJI.
. Congressional Record, May , , –.
. Rick Finn, “Hearings on the JCS Organization,” memorandum to Senator Tower
through Rhett Dawson and Jim Locher, Sept. , , box , folder “Initial Work
on DOD Reorganization,” SASC. Copy also in RDF.
. Rick Finn, “Hearings on the JCS Organization,” Memorandum for Senator Tower
through Jim McGovern and Jim Locher, Nov. , , RDF; Deborah M. Kyle,
“Slow Go On JCS Reform; Service Rhetoric on Promoting Only the Best?,” AFJ, Nov., , .
. David S. Broder, “Tower Exits The Senate,” WP, Aug. , , C.
. John G. Tower, Consequences: A Personal and Political Memoir (Boston: Little,
Brown, ), .
. Finn, “Hearings on the JCS Organization,” Nov. , ; Finn, “Scheduling of
JCS Hearing,” memorandum to Jim McGovern, Nov. , , RDF.
. Jones, “What’s Wrong,” .
. Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, ), .
. Fred Reed, “Soldiering: Dislike for Pentagon Common in Military,” Washington
Times, Aug. , , .
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Jones, “What’s Wrong,” .
. Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper and Brothers,
), –.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Structure and Operating Proce-
dures of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, th
Cong., d sess., Dec. , , –.
. Lt. Col. Nevins [Joint Staff], “Summary of SASC Hearing on JCS Reorganiza-
tion— December ,” Dec. , , included in briefing book for Weinberger,
a.n. --, box , folder “ JCS (May , ),” SD.
Chapter 5. Unfinished Business
. Archie D. Barrett, author interview, Nov. , .

. Ehrenhalt and Healy, eds., Politics in America, ; Kayla Barrett, “Auburn’s Sol-
dier Statesman,” The Auburn Alumnews, Jan.-Feb., , –; Kayla Barrett, “Working
the Mill Gate,” The Auburn Alumnews, Mar., , –.
. Barrett interview, Nov. , ; G. Kim Wincup, author interview, Sept. ,
.
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Dwayne Cox and Barbara Nelson, eds., William F. Nichols Oral History Transcripts
(Auburn, Ala.: Auburn University, ), , .
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Wincup interview.
. Rep. Bill Nichols, Statement to Investigations Subcommittee, Feb. , , a.n.
-, box , folder “Investigations Febr ,” WFN; Rep. Bill Nichols to Caspar W.
Weinberger, Feb. , , a.n. --, box , folder “ JCS (Jan.–),” SD.
. Ronald Reagan, “JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for Caspar W. Weinberger,
Jan. , , ibid.
. Caspar W. Weinberger to Rep. Bill Nichols, Feb. , , a.n. -, box ,
folder “Investigations March ,” WFN.
. Rep. Bill Nichols, “Meeting to Discuss Subcommittee Agenda,” Mar. , ,
a.n. -, box , folder “Investigations Apr., ,” WFN.
. Barrett interview, Feb. , ; Barrett to author, June , ; Barrett,
memorandum for John Ford, Apr. , , ADB. Of the Skelton bill, Barrett said: “I
felt it would be tantamount to establishing a general staff, an outcome I heartily op-
posed as being just as bad as the organizational arrangements we were attempting to
improve.”
. William H. Taft IV to Thomas P. O’Neill, Speaker of the House of Representa-
tives, Apr. , , a.n. --, box , folder “ JCS (Jan.–),” SD,
. JCS, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington: JCS, ), .
. Deborah M. Kyle, “JCS Message to Congress: People Key to JCS Reform, Not
Changes,” AFJ, July, , .
. Russell A. Rourke, “JCS Reorganization—Talking Points for Telephone Call to
Representative Bill Nichols,” memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, Apr. ,
; and Carl R. Smith, note for Russ Rourke, May , , both in a.n. --,
box , folder “ JCS (Jan.–),” SD.
. Barrett, “Notes on the Meeting of the Investigations Subcommittee with the
Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Concerning JCS Reor-
ganization, May , ,” memorandum to Chairman Bill Nichols, May , ,
ADB.
. In , President Eisenhower recommended that the service chiefs delegate
major portions of their responsibilities to the vice chiefs so that they could give prior-
ity to their JCS duties.
. Barrett, “Notes on the Meeting,” May , .
. Weinberger to Nichols, May , .
. Barrett to author, June , .

. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, May , , a.n. --, box , folder  DOD (Mar.–
July), SD.
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Reorganization Proposals for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Hearings before the Investigations Subcommittee, th Cong., st
sess., HASC no. -, June , , and , , .
. Ibid., , .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Nominations of General Paul
X. Kelley, Richard L. Armitage, and Chapman B. Cox: Hearing before the Committee on
Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, May , , .
. George C. Wilson, “Inside: The Pentagon,” WP, Apr. , , A.
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Barrett interview, Feb. , .
. Ibid., Nov. , .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, .
. Barrett interview, Feb. , .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –. Barrow hugging Vessey is from Barrett interview, Feb. , .
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Kyle, “JCS Message to Congress,” .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, .
. Barrett interview, Feb. , .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, –.
. Barrett to author, June , .
. Reorganization Proposals, HASC no. -, .
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Congress, House, Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act of : Report [To ac-
company H.R. ], th Cong., st sess., Report no. -, Sept. , , –.
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Full Committee Consideration
of H.R. , H.R. , and Committee Resolution Honoring the Late Honorable Larry P.
McDonald, th Cong., st sess., HASC no. -, Sept. , , –.
. Deborah M. Kyle, “House Committee Strengthens JCS Chairman/System; DOD
Protests,” AFJI (November ), .
. Congress, House, Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act of , H.R. ,
th Cong., st sess., Congressional Record—House (Oct. , ), –.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report on Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, Oct. , , a.n. --, box , folder “ DoD (Oct.–
Dec.),” SD.
. Barrett to author, June , .
Chapter 6. Misfire in the Senate
. Tower, Consequences, ; Michael Getler, “Sen. Tower Reported Leading Choice
for Secretary of Defense,” WP, Nov. , , A; Richard Burt, “Senator Tower Eyes
Position in Cabinet,” NYT, Nov. , , B.
. Ehrenhalt and Healy, eds., Politics in America, ; Michael Getler, “Tower Out
of Running for Pentagon,” WP, Nov. , , A.
. Dawson interview.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memorandum for
the president, July , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Mar.–July), SD.
. Dawson interview.
. Tower and his staff frequently discussed Weinberger’s performance with the
White House and NSC staff.
. Tower’s daily schedules and scheduling forms for May  and , , boxes
- and -, JGT; Victor H. Krulak to author, Feb. , , and author inter-
view, Apr. , .
. Victor H. Krulak, Organization for National Security: A Study (Washington: United
States Strategic Institute, ).
. Krulak interview.
. Krulak, Organization for National Security, .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., , .
. Dawson interview.
. Krulak, Organization for National Security, .
. Alan R. Yuspeh, author interview, Nov. , .
. John G. Tower, “Statement of Senator Tower, June , ,” Press Office Se-
ries, box , folder , JGT.
. Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch, Developing Organizations: Diagnosis and
Action (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, ), –.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Structure and Operating Proce-
dures of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, th
Cong., d sess., Dec. , , .
. Tower, Consequences, .
. Tower, “Statement, June , .”
. Tower, Consequences, .
. William J. Crowe Jr., author interview, Apr. , .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure, and
Decisionmaking Procedures of the Department of Defense: Hearings before the Committee
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , July , , .
. Newt Gingrich to Caspar Weinberger, July , , a.n. --, box ,
folder  DoD (Mar.–July), SD.
. Fred Hiatt, “Weinberger Blames Congress for Pentagon Management Prob-
lems,” WP, July , , .
. Fred Hiatt, “Auditors Report Pentagon Spending Too Much on Parts,” WP, July ,
, .
. Herblock, “I believe I do see a little something—but, after all, I’ve only been on
this job for two and a half years,” WP, July , , A; Herblock, untitled cartoon,
WP, July , , A.
. Organization, Structure, and Decisionmaking Procedures, S. Hrg. -, pt. , .
. Ibid., .
. Caspar W. Weinberger to Newt Gingrich, Aug. , , a.n. --, box
, folder  DoD (Aug.–Sept.), SD.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, July , , a.n. --, box , folder  DoD (Mar.–
July), SD.
. Deborah M. Kyle, “Weinberger Challenges Senate Committee At Defense Re-
form Hearing: Ease Up,” AFJ, Sept., , .
. Dan Balz, “Sen. Tower Won’t Seek Reelection,” WP, Aug. , , A.
. Pat Towell, “Reagan Will Be Hard-pressed To Articulate His Defense Policy on
Hill When Tower Steps Down,” AFJ, Oct., , .
. Organization, Structure, and Decisionmaking Procedures, S. Hrg. -, pt. , .
. Steven V. Roberts, “Expertise on Military Budget,” NYT, Apr. , , .
. Ehrenhalt and Healy, eds., Politics in America, .
. Michael R. Gordon, “Sam Nunn for the Defense—Georgia Boy Makes Good as
Gentle Pentagon Prodder,” National Journal, Mar. , , .
. Ehrenhalt and Healy, eds., Politics in America, .
. Steve Coll, “Sam Nunn, Insider from the Deep Southland,” WP, Feb. , ,
B.
. Gordon, “Sam Nunn for the Defense,” .
. Roberts, “Expertise on Military Budget,” .
. Ehrenhalt and Healy, eds., Politics in America, .
. Maxine Bloch and E. Mary Trow, eds., Current Biography: Who’s News and Why
 (New York: H. W. Wilson, ), .
. Benis M. Frank during interview of Gen. Paul X. Kelley, July , , U.S.
Marine Corps Oral History Program, .
. James M. Myatt quoted in Richard F. Smith, “Nothing was predictable,” The
(Jacksonville, N.C.) Daily News, Oct. , , A.
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Adequacy of U.S. Marine
Corps Security in Beirut: Report Together with Additional and Dissenting Views of the
Investigations Subcommittee, th Cong., st sess., Committee Print no. , Dec. ,
, –.
. Ronald H. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury: Grenada (Washington: Joint History
Office, ), .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, The Situation in Lebanon:
Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -,
Oct.  and , , .
. William Claiborne, “Marine Chief ‘Totally Satisfied’ Beirut Had Adequate Secu-
rity,” WP, Oct. , , A.
. Michael Getler, “Congressional Leaders Question the Steps Taken to Protect
Marines Before Attack,” WP, Oct. , , A.
. Kelley, interview by Frank, .

. Situation in Lebanon, S. Hrg. -, , .
. Ibid., , , .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure, and
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , Nov. , , .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. J. D. Hittle, “Organization for National Security, by LTGEN Krulak; comments and
recommendations,” memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy, Feb. , , box
A, folder Personnel Issues—Hittle Memos, JFL.
. John G. Tower, “Grenada,” memorandum for the Senate Committee on Armed
Services, Nov. , , Press Office Series, box , folder , “Grenada Memorandum,” JGT.
. Ibid.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure, and
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , Nov. , , .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure, and
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , Nov. , , .
. Ibid., .
. Brown, Thinking About National Security, –.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure, and
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , Nov. , , ;
Brown, Thinking About National Security, .
. Organization, Structure, and Decisionmaking Procedures, pt. , –.
. Robert L. Goldich, “The Evolution of Congressional Attitudes Toward a General
Staff in the th Century,” Senate Committee on Armed Services, Defense Organization:
The Need for Change, th Cong., st sess., S. Prt. -, Oct. , , –.
Chapter 7. Beirut
. Cox and Nelson, eds., Nichols Oral History Transcripts, ; Congress, House,
Congressman Nichols speaking on the issue of continued Marine presence in Leba-
non, th Cong., st sess., Congressional Record–House (Oct. , ), ; Peggy
Stelpflug, “Don’t Forget Beirut,” Birmingham News, Oct. , , C.
. Rep. Bill Nichols, press release, Sept. , , a.n. -, box , folder “Press
Releases ,” WFN.
. Stelpflug, “Don’t Forget Beirut;” Barrett, author interviews, Nov. , , and
Sept. , .
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Full Committee Consideration of
H.R. , th Cong., nd sess., HASC no. -, June , , –; Barrett inter-
view, Nov. , .
. Stansfield Turner, Terrorism and Democracy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ),
; Benis M. Frank, U.S. Marines in Lebanon: – (Washington: History and
Museums Division, Headquarters, Marine Corps, ), .
. Report of the DoD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act, Octo-
ber ,  (Washington, D.C.: DoD Commission on Beirut International Airport Ter-
rorist Act, ), –.
. Morton Kondracke, “Wading In,” New Republic, Oct. , , .
. Roy Gutman, “Battle over Lebanon,” Foreign Service Journal, June, , .
. Kondracke, “Wading In,” .
. Michael Getler, “Lebanon Policy Fuels Debate: Diplomats Are Bold, Pentagon
Wary,” WP, Mar. , , .
. Andrew J. Bacevich, “Discord Still: Clinton and The Military,” WP, Jan. ,
, C.
. Robert C. McFarlane with Zofia Smardz, Special Trust (New York: Cadell and
Davies, ), ; Bernard W. Rogers, author interview, Dec. , ; Richard
Halloran, “Reagan as Military Commander,” NYT Magazine, Jan. , , ;
Michael Getler, “Diplomats Are Bold, Pentagon Wary,” WP, Mar. , , .
. Thomas L. Friedman, “Weinberger Faults Marine Mission,” NYT, Mar. , ,
; Robert S. Dudney, “Lebanon Fallout: Strains Between Reagan, Military,” USN&WR,
Jan. , , .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, The Situation in Lebanon:
Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -,
Oct.  and , , –; Frank, Marines in Lebanon, –.
. William T. Corbett, author interview, June , .
. John K. Cooley, Payback: America’s Long War in the Middle East (Washington:
Brassey’s, ), –.
. David C. Martin and John Walcott, Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s
War Against Terrorism (New York: Harper and Row, ), –.
. Ibid.
. William Y. Smith, author interview, Nov. , .
. Noel C. Koch to Sam Nunn, n.d. (Sept. , ), JRL.
. William V. Cowan, “Intelligence, Rescue, Retaliation, and Decision-making,”
undated paper provided by Peter Probst, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Washington, D.C.
. Ibid.
. Koch to Nunn. At the time, many conventional officers did not view special
operations personnel favorably.
. Mary McGrory, “Ousting Kelley Wouldn’t Make U.S. Role in Lebanon Any
Wiser,” WP, Jan. , , ; James Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers (New York: Simon and
Schuster, ), .
. Frank, Marines in Lebanon, , –.
. Cooley, Payback, –; Corbett interview.
. Corbett interview.
. Daniel P. Bolger, Americans at War: –, an Era of Violent Peace (Novato,
Calif.: Presidio Press, ), .
. Ibid., –; Turner, Terrorism and Democracy, ; John M. Collins, America’s
Small Wars (Washington: Brassey’s, ), –.
. Rep. Bill Nichols, press release, Sept. , , a.n. -, box , folder “Press
Releases ,” WFN.
. Peggy A. Stelpflug to author, Feb. , ; Joe Stelpflug, “Brother Bill,” n.d.
. Stelpflug, “Don’t Forget Beirut;” Joe Stelpflug, “‘Peacekeeping’ endangers
lives,” Auburn (Alabama) Plainsman, Nov. , , A.
. William J. Stelpflug to Rep. Bill Nichols, n.d. (late Aug./early Sept., ), PSt.
. Rep. Bill Nichols to Mr. and Mrs. William J. Stelpflug, Sept. , , PSt.
. John M. Goshko, “House Will Consider Marines’ Stay in Lebanon,” WP, Sept. ,
, A.
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Full Committee Hearings on
the Use of U.S. Military Personnel in Lebanon and Consideration of Report from September
– Committee Delegation to Lebanon, th Cong., st sess., HASC no. -, Sept. 
and , , –.
. Peggy Stelpflug, notes on WFN, July , , PSt.
. Full Committee Hearings, HASC no. -, , –.
. Nichols, press release, Sept. , ; Stelpflug, “Don’t Forget Beirut.”
. T. R. Reid, “House Votes -Month Limit On Marines’ Use in Lebanon,” WP,
Sept. , , A.
. Ibid.
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps
Security in Beirut: Report together with Additional and Dissenting Views of the Investiga-
tions Subcommittee, Committee Print No. , th Cong., st sess., Dec. , , .
. Samuel S. Stratton, “Let’s Get Out of Lebanon,” WP, Oct. , , A.
. Frank, Marines in Lebanon, .
. Ibid., –; Michael Petit, Peacekeepers at War: A Marine’s Account of the Beirut
Catastrophe (Boston: Faber and Faber, ), ; David Zucchino, “Recalling those who
came in peace: Blast scarred those present, thousands more who were not,” Daily
News (Jacksonville, N.C.), Oct. , , A.
. Eric Hammel, The Root: The Marines in Beirut, August –February  (San
Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ), , , , .
. Barrett interview, Sept. , .
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Review of Adequacy of Secu-
rity Arrangements for Marines in Lebanon and Plans for Improving That Security: Hearings
before the Committee on Armed Services and the Investigations Subcommittee, th Cong.,
st sess., HASC no. -, Nov. , , , and ; Dec. , , , and , , ; “Con-
gressman Nichols,” staff typed note, n.d., PSt; Billy Atkinson to Ms. Peggy Stelpflug,
Oct. , , PSt.
. Kelley, interview by Frank, .

. Gen. Paul X. Kelley, author interview, July , . The commission was titled
the “DoD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act of October , .”
. Barrett interview, Sept. , ; Review of Adequacy of Security, HASC no. -
, –.
. Barrett interview, Sept. , .
. McGrory, “Ousting Kelley”; Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services,
Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security in Beirut: Summary of Findings and Conclusions
(To Accompany Committee Print no. —Basic Report) of the Investigations Subcommittee,
Committee Print no. A, th Cong., st sess., Dec. , , .
. Review of Adequacy of Security, HASC no. -, , , , .
. David Rogers, “House Panel Faults Marine Commander for Errors in Beirut
Truck-Bomb Attack,” WSJ, Dec. , , ; Margaret Shapiro, “House Unit Faults
U.S. Security in Oct.  Bombing,” WP, Dec. , , .
. HASC, Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security in Beirut: Summary of Findings
and Conclusions, .
. HASC, Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security in Beirut: Report,  (emphasis in
original).
. Shapiro, “House Unit Faults U.S. Security.”
. Barrett interviews, Nov. , , and Sept. , .
. Ibid., Nov. , ; HASC, Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security in Beirut:
Summary of Findings and Conclusions, .
. John F. Lehman Jr., Command of the Seas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
), ; Crowe, Line of Fire, .
. See Fred Hiatt, “President Accepts Blame in Attack On Marine Base: Pentagon
Is Critical of Security in Beirut,” WP, Dec. , , , and “Report Hits U.S. Reliance
on Force in Lebanon,” WP, Dec. , , A; and James Wallace, “Time to Pull Out of
Lebanon?” USN&WR, Jan. , , .
. Lehman, Command of the Seas, .
. Hiatt, “Report Hits U.S. Reliance.”
. DoD Commission, Report, –, .
. Ibid., , , .
. Ibid., , .
. “Marines Reclassify  Killed in Lebanon as Battle Deaths,” NYT, Jan. ,
, ; “Marine Deaths Reclassified,” WP, Jan. , , .
. DoD Commission, Report, , .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, –; George C. Wilson, Super Carrier: An
Inside Account of Life Aboard the World’s Most Powerful Ship, the USS John F. Kennedy
(New York: Macmillan, ), .
. Ibid., .
. Quoted in Martin and Walcott, Best Laid Plans, .
. Wilson, Super Carrier, , .
. Martin and Walcott, Best Laid Plans, .
. Wilson, Super Carrier, –; Gabriel, Military Incompetence,  (quotation).
. Wilson, Super Carrier, , .
. Martin and Walcott, Best Laid Plans, .
. Title , U.S. Code, sec. : Combatant commands: establishment; composi-
tion; functions; administration and support.
. Barrett interview, Sept. , .
. Robert L. J. Long, author interview, Jan. , .
. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Message to the Congress,” Apr. , , in Cole et al.,
eds., Department of Defense, .
. Blue Ribbon Defense Panel, Report to the President and the Secretary of Defense on
the Department of Defense (Washington: GPO, ), .
. John H. Cushman, Command and Control of Theater Forces: The Korea Command
and Other Cases (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, ), ii.
. John H. Cushman, Command and Control of Theater Forces: Adequacy (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University, ), ES- and ES-.
. John H. Cushman to author, July , .
. Cushman, Adequacy, -.
. Ibid., -–-.
. Cushman, Korea Command and Other Cases, -.
. Ibid., -, -; Unified Action Armed Forces (Washington: JCS, ), 
(changes – included).
. William Y. Smith interview, Nov. , ; Bernard E. Trainor, author inter-
view, Nov. , .
. DoD Commission, Report, –, –.
. Rogers interview, Dec. , ; HASC, Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security
in Beirut: Report, .
. Cushman, Korea Command and Other Cases, -, -.
. William Y. Smith, author interviews, Nov. , , and Jan. , .
. Corbett interview.
. Rogers interview, Dec. , .
. Long interview.
. Martin and Walcott, Best Laid Plans, –.
. Rogers interview, Dec. , .
. Collins, America’s Small Wars, ; “Failure in Lebanon,” WP, Feb. , ,
A.
. Jeffrey Record, “The Beirut Disaster Could Have Been Avoided,” WP, Nov. ,
, A.
. Trainor interview, Nov. , .
. Philip Taubman and Joel Brinkley, “The U.S. Marine Tragedy: Causes and Re-
sponsibilities,” NYT, Dec. , , .
. Record, “Beirut Disaster.”
. Bolger, Americans at War, , .
. DoD Commission, Report, .
. Ibid., .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. Philip Taubman and Joel Brinkley, “Security: As Threats Grew, Defenses Were
Improvised,” NYT, Dec. , , .
. Ralph A. Hallenbeck, Military Force as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy:
Intervention in Lebanon, August –February  (New York: Praeger, ), ;
DoD Commission, Report, ; HASC, Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security in Beirut:
Summary of Findings and Conclusions, .
. Martin and Walcott, Best Laid Plans, .
. Cooley, Payback, .
. Martin and Walcott, Best Laid Plans, ,  (quotation).
. Field Manual -: Field Service Regulations, Operations (Washington: Depart-
ment of the Army, ), –.
. Richard Halloran, “Pentagon Moves to Simplify Chain of Command to
Beirut,” NYT, Feb. , , .
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With Report-
ers on the Pentagon Report on the Security of United States Marines in Lebanon,”
Dec. , , Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, ,
Book , July  to December ,  (Washington: GPO, ), .
. “The Easy Way Out,” WSJ, Dec. , , ; “Blame, but No Answer,” Los
Angeles Times, Dec. , , II-; “Accepting Blame,” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. ,
, ; “Washington Whispers,” USN&WR, Jan. , , .
. Dudney, “Lebanon Fallout,” .
. Fred Hiatt and David Hoffman, “Shelling Restraint Ordered By ‘Surprised’
Weinberger,” WP, Feb. , , ; Philip Taubman, “Navy Secretary Said to Favor
Reprimands for Beirut Blast,” NYT, Jan. , , ; Fred Hiatt, “Military Officials Re-
spond to Marine Report,” WP, Jan. , , .
. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, ; Lehman, Command of the Seas, –;
Hammel, Root, .
. Long interview.
. Gen. Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, author interview, Feb. , .
. Trainor interview, Nov. , .
. Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps (New York: Scribner, ), .
. Barrett interview, Sept. , .
. Ibid., Nov. , .
Chapter 8. Scholars and Old Soldiers
. James A. Smith, The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite
(New York: Free Press, ), xiii and xv.
. Gregg Easterbrook, “Ideas Move Nations: How Conservative Think Tanks Have
Helped to Transform the Terms of Political Debate,” Atlantic, Jan., , .
. Smith, Idea Brokers, xv, xiii, xiv, xv–xvi, , , .
. Peter W. Chiarelli, “Introduction” in U. S. Military Academy, Final Proceedings,
Senior Conference XX: The “Military Reform” Debate: Directions for the Defense Establish-
ment for the Remainder of the Century: Final Proceedings, ed. Peter W. Chiarelli (West
Point, N.Y.: United States Military Academy, ), .
. Daniel J. Kaufman, author interview, Dec. , .
. Gary Hart, “The Case for Military Reform,” WSJ, Jan. , , .
. George C. Wilson, “Military Pessimism Aired,” WP, June , , .
. James Fallows, National Defense (New York: Random House, ).

. Chiarelli, ed., Final Proceedings, Senior Conference XX, .
. Asa A. Clark IV et al., eds., The Defense Reform Debate: Issues and Analysis (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, ).
. Edwin A. Deagle, author interview, Nov. , .
. Barry M. Blechman, author interview, Dec. , .
. Ibid.
. Philip A. Odeen to William Brehm, June , , WKB.
. Blechman interview; Barry M. Blechman to Sam Nunn, Oct. , , JRL;
Deagle interview.
. Easterbrook, “Ideas Move Nations.”
. Smith, Idea Brokers, , .
. Blechman interview; Deagle interview.
. Perry, Four Stars, .
. Lloyd Grove, “For Bill Cohen, A Midlife Correction,” WP, Jan. , , F.
. Biographical Note in the William S. Cohen Papers at the Raymond H. Fogler
Library, University of Maine; Grove, “For Bill Cohen.”
. Blechman interview; William Spencer Johnson, “Center for Strategic and In-
ternational Studies (CSIS), Georgetown University, Military Reform Project,” memo-
randum for the Secretary of the Navy, Nov. , , JFL.
. T. R. Fedyszyn, “CSIS Defense Organization Project, Status of,” memorandum
for the Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy (Policy), n.d., and “AEI Public Policy Week:
DoD Management, Organization and Resource Allocation Panel,” memorandum for
the Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy (Policy), n.d. (Dec., ), both in box ,
folder “CSIS Defense Organization Project (-),” OPNAV; E. B. Potter, Admiral
Arleigh Burke (New York: Random House, ), .
. CSIS Defense Organization Project, Toward a More Effective Defense: The Final
Report of the Defense Organization Project (Washington: Center for Strategic and Inter-
national Studies, Georgetown University, ); Barry M. Blechman and William J.
Lynn, eds., Toward a More Effective Defense: Report of the Defense Organization Project
(Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, ).
. CSIS Defense Organization Project, Toward a More Effective Defense, –, –,
–.
. Blechman interview; Easterbrook, “Ideas Move Nations.”
. Mark Perry, “How Cap Weinberger Lost the Fight over Defense Reform,” Ameri-
can Politics, Feb., , .
. Easterbrook, “Ideas Move Nations.”
. Melissa Healy and Michael Duffy, “Joint Chiefs Draw Defense,” Defense Week,
Feb. , , ; Blechman interview.
. John F. Lehman Jr. to Admiral Moorer, Dan McMichael, and Morrie Liebman,
n.d., box , folder “OI [Organizational Issues]—JCS Reorg—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Deagle interview; Blechman interview.
. CSIS Defense Organization Project, Toward a More Effective Defense, ;
Blechman interview.
. CSIS Defense Organization Project, Toward a More Effective Defense, v–vi, –.
. Thomas L. McNaugher with Roger L. Sperry, “Improving Military Coordina-

tion: The Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization of the Department of Defense,” in Who
Makes Public Policy: The Struggle for Control Between Congress and the Executive, ed.
Robert S. Gilmour and Alexis A. Halley (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, ), .
. Blechman interview.
. Theodore J. Crackel to author, Nov. , .
. “Vying for the President’s Ear,” The Middle East, June, , .
. Theodore J. Crackel, author interview, Sept. , .
. Theodore J. Crackel, “Meeting with Michelle Van Cleave,” memorandum to
Burt Pines, Sept. , , TJC.
. Crackel interview; Theodore J. Crackel, “Defense Assessment Project: Quarterly
Report,” memoranda to Burt Pines, Nov. , , and Mar. , , TJC.
. Crackel interview.
. William Spencer Johnson, author interview, Jan. , .
. Theodore J. Crackel, undated draft of paper identified as FILE: B:CRACK.MSS—
FIFTH DRAFT, box , folder “OI—Defense Reorganization, ” (folder  of ), JFL;
Theodore J. Crackel, “Reforming ‘Military Reform,’” The Heritage Foundation Back-
grounder, Dec. , .
. John F. Lehman Jr., undated note to Dick Allen with Heritage backgrounder, “Re-
forming ‘Military Reform,’” attached, box A, folder “Personnel Issues—Allen, Richard,”
JFL (quotation, emphasis in original); Lehman, Command of the Seas, –, –.
. Crackel, untitled draft of paper, n.d., box , folder “OI—Defense Reorganiza-
tion, ” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Crackel interview; Theodore J. Crackel to author, Mar. , , TJC.
. Johnson, author interviews, Jan.  and Feb. , .
. Crackel interview; Ed Feulner, untitled memorandum to Burt Pines, Apr. ,
 (: P.M.), TJC.
. Theodore J. Crackel, “Defense Assessment,” in Stuart M. Butler et al., Mandate
for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution (Washington: Heritage Founda-
tion, ), –; McNaugher with Sperry, “Improving Military Coordination,”
 (quotation).
. Crackel, “Defense Assessment,” , –.
. Archie D. Barrett to Ted Crackel, Dec. , , TJC.
. Crackel to author, Nov. , .
. Robert J. Art, author interview, Nov. , ; “Talking Paper on the NDU-
Proposed Conference on DoD,” a.n. --, box , folder  JCS (Oct.–Dec.)
, SD (quotation).
. Art interview.
. Robert J. Art, “Introduction: Pentagon Reform in Comparative and Historical
Perspective,” in Reorganizing America’s Defense: Leadership in War and Peace, ed. Robert J.
Art et al. (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey’s, ), xi–xii; Samuel P. Huntington,
author interview, Nov. , .
. McNaugher with Sperry, “Improving Military Coordination,” .
. J. D. Hittle, “‘Defense Study,’” memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy, Dec.
, , box , folder “OI—Defense Reorganization, ” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Smith, Idea Brokers, , .

. Gregory L. Vistica, Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy (New York:
Simon and Schuster, ), –.
. Thomas D. Bell Jr., “The Joint Chiefs Should Remain Joint,” NYT, Mar. ,
, .
. Committee on Civilian-Military Relationships, An Analysis of Proposed Joint
Chiefs of Staff Reorganization (Indianapolis: Hudson Institute, ), ii.
. D. O. Cooke, “Report by the Committee on Civilian/Military Relationship—
Hudson Institute,” memorandum for record, Oct. , , a.n. --, box ,
folder “ JCS,” SD.
. Jake W. Stewart, “JCS Reform: Hudson Institute Study,” memorandum for Ad-
miral Watkins, Sept. , , CNO (emphasis in original).
. R. W. Komer, “Opposing View on JCS,” letter to the editor, Defense Week, Oct. ,
, .
. John M. Poindexter, note to Robert C. McFarlane, n.d., attached on top of
Philip A. Dur, “Hudson Institute Report,” RRL; Colin L. Powell [Weinberger’s senior
military assistant], note for Rhett Dawson [staff director of the Packard Commission],
Aug. , , a.n. --, box , folder “ JCS,” SD. Note reads: “SecDef
wanted to make sure this [attached Hudson report] was available to the [Packard]
Commission.”
. James D. Watkins, “Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” memorandum
to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Plans, Policy and Operations), n.d., CNO.
. James D. Watkins to Senator Nunn, Mar. , , SASC; CNO Select Panel,
Report of the Chief of Naval Operations Select Panel: Reorganization of the National Secu-
rity Organization (Washington: Office of the CNO, ), I-–I-, I-, I-–I-.
. Seth Cropsey to Rear Adm. James E. Service, Oct. , , OPNAV.
. Seth Cropsey, “Newport JCS Conference,” memorandum for the Secretary of
the Navy, May , , box , folder OI—JCS Reorg— (folder  of ), JFL.
. Naval War College, JCS Reform: Proceedings of the Conference (Newport, R.I.:
Naval War College, ), –, –, , .
. Cropsey, “Newport JCS Conference.”
Chapter 9. Nichols Runs Tower’s Blockade
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .

. Wilson, Super Carrier, –.
. Fred Kaplan, “Naval firepower and its impact,” Boston Globe, Feb. , , ;
idem., “US shelling of Lebanon is called ineffective,” Boston Globe, Feb. , , .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, ; Kaplan, “US shelling of Lebanon.”
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. James Locher, “Schedule for DoD Organization Project,” memorandum for Jim
McGovern, Feb. , , box , folder “Locher Chron File—Jan.–Mar., ,” SASC.
. Barbara B. Brown, author interview, Dec. , .
. James McGovern, “Committee Staff Report on the Organizational Structure and
Decision-making Process of the Department of Defense,” memorandum to Senator
Tower and Senator Nunn, Pre- and Post-Senate Papers, folder “Staff Report on the
Organization and Decision-Making Procedures of the DoD,” JGT; “Agenda for
Chairman Tower’s Meeting with Bud McFarlane (//),” talking points, n.d.,
Defense, Foreign Relations, and Armed Services Committee Series, box , folder ,
JGT.
. John Tower to Barry Goldwater, May , , box , SASC; David J. Berteau,
author interview, Sept. , .
. Chapman B. Cox to Melvin Price, May , , box ,  conference, “JCS
FY Authorization Bill H.R. ” ( changes to title ), ADB.
. House, Congressman Price of Illinois speaking for a block of eleven amend-
ments, H.R. , Department of Defense Authorization Act, , th Cong., d
sess., Congressional Record (May , ): , .
. “Talking Points for Chairman’s Meeting with Secretary Weinberger, June ,
,” undated point paper, Defense, Foreign Relations, Armed Services Committee
Series, box , folder , JGT (emphasis in original).
. Sen. Sam Nunn, “Provision on JCS Re-organization in the House Authorization
Act,” memorandum to Senator Tower, June , , RDF (emphasis in original).
. Ibid.; Archie D. Barrett, “Legislative Workload,” memorandum to Chairman
Bill Nichols, June , , box , file “JCS FY Authorization Bill H.R. ” (
changes to title ), ADB.
. Nunn, “Provision on JCS Re-organization.”
. Congress, Senate, Senator Eagleton of Missouri speaking for an amendment for
improvement in system for providing military advice to the president, NSC, and secre-
tary of defense, th Cong., d sess., Congressional Record (June , ): –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Jeffrey H. Smith, author interview, June , .
. Dawson interview.
. Michael Glennon, “Democrats’ Panel Defends More for Defense,” Congressional
Quarterly, Mar. , , , , .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid.
. Sen. Sam Nunn, Oral History, Sept. , , the Sam Nunn Archive, Special
Collections, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga. The author
interviewed Senator Nunn, and Arnold L. Punaro, Jeffrey H. Smith, Richard D. Finn
Jr., and Richard DeBobes provided additional comments.
. Archie D. Barrett, “Outline of Remarks to Authorization Conference Initiating
JCS Discussion,” memorandum to Chairman Bill Nichols, June , , box , file
“JCS FY Authorization Bill H.R. ” ( changes to title ), ADB; Archie D.
Barrett, “Prospects for Agreement Between House and Senate Conferees on Specific
JCS Provisions,” memorandum to Chairman Bill Nichols, June , , and “Confer-
ence Statement of Honorable Melvin Price: JCS,” undated statement, both in ibid.
. John Lehman, “Let’s Stop Trying to Be Prussians: An Old Bad Idea Surfaces
Again,” WP, June , .
. Archie D. Barrett, “Attached Communication on the JCS Bill,” memorandum to

Chairman Bill Nichols, July , , a.n. -, box , untitled folder (includes
 defense authorization conference materials), WFN.
. J. L. Holloway III to Commodore Paul D. Miller, USN, with Association of Naval
Aviation Blue Stripe #, dated July , , attached, July , , box , folder
“OI—JCS Reorg—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Archie D. Barrett, “Staff Negotiations on the JCS Issue,” memorandum to
G. Kim Wincup, Sept. , , box , file “JCS FY Authorization Bill H.R. ”
( changes to title ), ADB.
. “Status of Negotiations on JCS Reorganization,” undated point paper, a.n. -
, box , untitled folder (includes  defense authorization conference materials),
WFN; Rick Finn, “Status of Negotiations on JCS Reorganization,” point paper, Sept. ,
, RDF.
. Barrett, “Staff Negotiations.”
. Wincup interview.
. Barrett interviews, Nov. , , and July , .
. Ibid., Nov. , .
. Rep. Bill Nichols, handwritten talking points, n.d., a.n. -, box , untitled
folder (includes  defense authorization conference materials), WFN.
. Barrett interview, July , .
. Ibid., Nov. , .
. Bruce Porter, Phil Odeen, and Bill Lynn, “DoD Organizational Reform and the
House-Senate Conference,” memorandum for Senator Nunn, Sept. , , box ,
folder “JCS FY Authorization Bill H.R. ” ( changes to title ), ADB.
. Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, –; Wincup interview.
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Wincup interview.
. Sam Nunn, Oral History, Sept. , ; Congress, House, Department of Defense
Authorization Act, , th Cong., d sess., report -, Sept. , , –.
Bruce Porter, Phil Odeen, and Bill Lynn prepared the first draft of the report language.
. Nunn Oral History. Nunn had originated the idea of the questions. Bruce Por-
ter, Phil Odeen, and Bill Lynn provided a draft of these questions for Nunn.
. David J. Berteau, “JCS Reorganization,” memorandum for the Deputy Secretary
of Defense, Sept. , , DJB.
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
. Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, .
. Barrett interview, Nov. , .
Chapter 10. Crowe Makes Waves
. Crowe, Line of Fire, –.

. Neil Ulman, “Four-Star Fighter: Adm. William Crowe Battles for Recognition Of
His NATO Area,” WSJ, Aug. , , .
. “William Crowe: A Diplomat Among Warriors,” USN&WR, Oct. , , .
. Jennet Conant with John Barry, “An Officer and Intellectual,” Newsweek, July ,
, .
. John Keegan, The Second World War (New York: Viking Penguin, ), .
. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack,
Hearings before Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, th
Cong., st and d sess., pt.  (): .
. Ibid., .
. Wallace, Military Command Authority, .
. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, ), .
. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack,
Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack: Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation
of the Pearl Harbor Attack, th Cong., d sess., , .
. Ibid., .
. Louis Morton, Strategy and Command: The First Two Years (Washington: Office
of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army), .
. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New
York: Free Press, ), –.
. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York:
Harper and Brothers, ),  (emphasis in original).
. Morton, Strategy and Command, .
. Nathan Miller, War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II (New York: Scribner,
), .
. Morton, Strategy and Command, .
. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, .
. Ibid., ; Morton, Strategy and Command, –.
. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, .
. Ibid., –; Morton, Strategy and Command, –.
. Thomas J. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, – October : The Dramatic Full
Story, Based on the Latest Research, of the Greatest Naval Battle in History (New York:
HarperCollins, ), .
. Charles A. Willoughby and John Chamberlain, MacArthur, – (New
York: McGraw-Hill, ), .
. Ibid., .
. Miller, War at Sea, .
. Cutler, Battle of Leyte Gulf, .
. Miller, War at Sea, .
. Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, –.
. Ibid., .
. Miller, War at Sea, .
. Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, –.
. Ibid., .
. Cutler, Battle of Leyte Gulf, .
. Ibid., .
. Grace Person Hayes, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II: The
War Against Japan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, ), ; Spector, Eagle Against
the Sun, .
. Ronald H. Cole et al., The History of the Unified Command Plan: –
(Washington: Joint History Office, ), .
. Commander in Chief Pacific Command History, vol. ,  (Camp H. M. Smith,
Hi.: Historical Branch, Headquarters, Pacific Command, ), .
. Commander in Chief Pacific Command History, vol. ,  (Camp H. M. Smith,
Hi.: Historical Branch, Headquarters, Pacific Command, ), –.
. Wallace, Military Command Authority, ; “Banner Operations (Action No. ),”
undated point paper, FOIA Mandatory Review, case no. NLJ -, doc. no. a,
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Tex.
. House Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on the USS Pueblo,
Inquiry into the U.S.S. Pueblo and EC- Plane Incidents, Report of the Special Subcom-
mittee on the USS Pueblo, st Cong., st sess., July , , HASC no. -, ;
Thomas P. Coakley, ed., CI: Issues of Command and Control (Washington: NDU, ), .
. Inquiry into the U.S.S. Pueblo, HASC no. -, .
. Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair
(New York: Coward-McCann, ), , .
. Inquiry into the U.S.S. Pueblo, HASC no. -, ; Wallace, Military Com-
mand Authority, .
. Crowe, Line of Fire, .
. Inquiry into the U.S.S. Pueblo, HASC no. -, .
. Ibid., .
. Robert R. Simmons, The Pueblo, EC-, and Mayaguez Incidents: Some Continu-
ities and Changes (Baltimore: Occasional Papers/Reprints Series in Contemporary
Asian Studies, ), .
. Wallace, Military Command Authority, .
. Edward R. Murphy Jr. with Curt Gentry, Second in Command: The Uncensored
Account of the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,
), .
. Inquiry into the U.S.S. Pueblo, HASC no. -, .
. William J. Crowe Jr., author interview, Nov. , .
. Ibid., Apr. , .
. Crowe, Line of Fire, .
. Crowe interview.
. Crowe, Line of Fire, , .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., ; Robert C. McFarlane, author interview, Feb. , .
. Jeffrey Smith interview.
. J. A. Baldwin, author interview, Sept. , .
. Jeffrey Smith interview.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Nominations of Chapman B.
Cox To Be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Management and Personnel and Sylvester
R. Foley Jr. To Be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs: Hearings before the
Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., Dec. , , S. Hrg. -, .
. Jeffrey Smith interview.
Chapter 11. Goldwater and Nunn Close Ranks
. David Shribman, “Sen. Goldwater, More Unpredictable Than Ever, Troubles Pen-
tagon Brass on the Military Budget,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. , , ; Bill Keller,
“Rattling the Pentagon’s Coffee Cups,” NYT, Dec. , , B.
. Barry M. Goldwater, author interview, May , .
. Robert Byrne, , Best Things Anybody Ever Said (New York: Fawcett Colum-
bine, ), ; Barry Goldwater to Sam Nunn, June , , box C-, folder ,
BMG.
. Goldwater interview.
. Barry Goldwater, “Memo to the Staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee,”
n.d., SASC.
. Goldwater interview; Goldwater quoted in Sacramento Bee, Jan. , .
. Goldwater interview.
. Ibid.
. Barry M. Goldwater, With No Apologies: The Personal and Political Memoirs of
United States Senator Barry M. Goldwater (New York: William Morrow, ), .
. Lee Edwards, Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution (Washington:
Regnery, ), .
. Barry Goldwater to John Tower, Aug. , , JGT.
. Barry Goldwater to Carl F. Ullrich, June , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. “We Should Be Spending More,” USN&WR, Oct. , , .
. Barry Goldwater, Colonel, USAFR, “A Concept for the Future Organization of
the United States Armed Forces,” , BMG.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Barry Goldwater, “The Vietnam War,” undated article for a Georgia newspaper
attached to a letter to Mack Mattingly, Mar. , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, –.
. Ibid., .
. Gerald J. Smith, author interview, May, ; Goldwater with Casserly,
Goldwater, ,  (Beckwith quotation).
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., ; Gerald J. Smith interview; Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Anne Q. Hoy, “A Leader, Not a Legislator,” Arizona Republic, Jan. , , 
(Rhodes and Udall quotations); Jerry Kramer, “: Matt Dillon goes to Washing-
ton,” Arizona Republic, Jan. , , –.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Nunn Oral History.
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, ; Jeffrey Smith interview.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Ibid.; Nunn Oral History.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Arnold L. Punaro, author interview, Mar. , .
. Nunn Oral History.
. Barry Goldwater to James F. McGovern, Jan. , , SASC.

. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn, “Dear Committee Colleague,” Jan. , ,
SASC.
. Bill Keller, “Overhaul Is Urged for Top Military: Panel Seeks to Expand Power of
Chairman of Joint Chiefs,” NYT, Jan. , , .
. Walter Andrews, “Reagan, Weinberger happy with form of Joint Chiefs of
Staff,” Washington Times, Jan. , , .
. “Military-Reform Study on Target,” Atlanta Constitution, Jan. , , A.
. “A Real Defense Need,” Chicago Tribune, Jan. , , .
. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to Caspar W. Weinberger, Feb. , , SASC.
. Barry Goldwater, handwritten notes on Locher, Finn, and Smith, “Chapter on
the Unified and Specified Commands,” memorandum for Senator Goldwater and
Senator Nunn, Apr. , , SASC. Goldwater’s interest in the use of history was
confirmed in a discussion with Terry Emerson, a longtime member of Goldwater’s
personal staff.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Barry Goldwater, “Goldwater Writes CIA Director Scorching Letter,” WP, Apr. ,
, A.
. Goldwater interview.
. Caspar Weinberger to Barry M. Goldwater, Mar. , , SASC.
. Michael Ganley, “DoD Leaders Defend Command Structure, But Joint Com-
manders Ask for More Say,” AFJ, June, , .
. Weinberger to Goldwater, Mar. , .
. “A New Chief for the Joint Chiefs,” Newsweek, Jan. , , .
. Sam Nunn, author interview, July , ; Nunn Oral History; Jeffrey Smith
interview.
. Jeffrey Smith interview.
. Crowe interview.
. Gerald J. Smith interview; Barry Goldwater to Sam Nunn, May , , box
C-, folder , BMG.
. Sam Nunn to Barry Goldwater, May , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. Nunn Oral History.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Nunn interview; Goldwater to Nunn, June , .
. Nunn interview.
. Ibid.; Goldwater to Nunn, June , .
. Goldwater with Casserly, Goldwater, .
. Nunn Oral History; Nunn interview.
. John G. Kester, “Caution: Leaner Times Ahead,” Military Logistics Forum, Jan.–
Feb., , .
Chapter 12. Weinberger Stonewalls
. Nicholas Lemann, “The Peacetime War,” Atlantic, Oct., , .

. Nunn Oral History.
. Hedrick Smith, The Power Game: How Washington Works (New York: Random
House, ), .
. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, .

. Ibid.; Lemann, “Peacetime War,” .
. Richard A. Stubbing with Richard A. Mendel, The Defense Game: An Insider Ex-
plores the Astonishing Realities of America’s Defense Establishment (New York: Harper
and Row, ), –.
. Robert C. Toth, “Weinberger: Deep Man, Complex Job,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. ,
, .
. Lemann, “Peacetime War,” , .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, ; Lemann, “Peacetime War,” .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, .
. Toth, “Weinberger.”
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, –.
. Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Touchstone,
), ; Toth, “Weinberger.”
. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Why Weinberger? Why Carlucci?” WP,
Dec. , , A.
. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Antidotes to Weinberger,” WP, Jan. , ,
A.
. George C. Wilson, “Weinberger: Pentagon Chief to Be Something of Contradic-
tion,” WP, Dec. , , A.
. Congress, Senate, Senator Helms of North Carolina speaking against the nomi-
nation of Mr. Caspar W. Weinberger to be secretary of defense, th Cong., st sess.,
Congressional Record—Senate (Jan. , ): –.
. Walter S. Mossberg, “Pentagon’s Captain: A Big Winner in , Weinberger Is
Having a Tougher Time Now,” WSJ, May , , .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, .
. Lemann, “Peacetime War,” , .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, .
. William H. Taft IV, “Counterpoint to History: Basis of Opposition,” (speech pre-
sented at the Louis A. Bantle Symposium, “Goldwater-Nichols from  to :
The Department of Defense Reorganization Act Past, Present, Future,” Oct. , ,
Syracuse University).
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, ; Smith, Power Game, .
. Crowe interview.
. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, ), .
. Smith, Power Game, –.
. Dawson interview.
. Smith, Power Game, ; Barry Goldwater to John Tower, Aug. , , JGT;
Robert Helms Papers, RRL.
. Smith, Power Game, , .
. Martin Schram, “Caspar One-Note’s Military March,” WP, Apr. , , B.
. Phil Gailey and Warren Weaver Jr., “Briefing: Backfire from MX,” NYT, Dec. ,
, .
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, .
. Colin L. Powell with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Ran-
dom House, ), , .
. Toth, “Weinberger.”
. Powell with Persico, My American Journey, .
. Colin Powell, quoted in Cannon, President Reagan, ; Powell with Persico, My
American Journey, .
. Berteau interview, Sept. , .
. Lemann, “Peacetime War,” .
. Cannon, President Reagan, ; Ed Rollins with Tom DeFrank, Bare Knuckles and
Back Rooms: My Life in American Politics (New York: Broadway Books, ), .
. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, .
. John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, ed. Emily Morrison Beck et al., th ed. (Bos-
ton: Little, Brown, ), .
. Crowe interview, Apr. , ; Taft, “Counterpoint to History.”
. Weinberger interview.
. Taft, “Counterpoint to History”; Smith, Power Game, .
. Weinberger interview.
. Berteau interview, Sept. , .
. Crowe, Line of Fire, .
. Weinberger interview.
. John W. Vessey, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Stuart Rochester, Jan. ,
, OSD Historical Office, Arlington, Va.
. John W. Vessey, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Maurice Matloff, Mar. ,
, ibid.
. Gen. Edward C. “Shy” Meyer, author interview, June , .
. Steven Strasser, “Reagan’s Kind of Hero,” Newsweek, Nov. , , .
. Vessey interview, Mar. , ; Meyer interview, June , .
. Cushman, Korea Command and Other Cases, -–-.
. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea: – (Washington:
Office of Air Force History, ), –, .
. Ibid., –, .
. Richard P. Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea (Baltimore: Nautical and Avia-
tion, ), –.
. Ibid., –.
. Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, .
. Doris Condit, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, vol. II, The Test of
War: – (Arlington, Va.: OSD Historical Office, ), , , .
. Arthur T. Hadley, The Straw Giant: Triumph and Failure: America’s Armed Forces
(New York: Random House, ), –.
. Condit, History, –.
. Vessey interview, Mar. , .
. Meyer interview, June , .
. Vessey interview, Mar. , .
. Michael B. Donley and John W. Douglass, author interview, Aug. , .
. Vessey interview, Mar. , .
. Richard Halloran, “A Commanding Voice for the Military,” NYT, July , ,
sec. , .
. Ibid.
. Gerald F. Seib, “Top General: Vessey of Joint Chiefs Helps Give the Military Clout
in White House,” WSJ, Mar. , , .
. Berteau interview, Sept. , .
. William H. Taft IV, “Senate Hearings on Organization of the Department of
Defense,” Memorandum for the Secretaries of the Military Departments, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, June , , a.n.
--, box , folder “ JCS,” SD.
. David J. Berteau, author interview, Sept. , .
. Blechman interview.
. Healy and Duffy, “Joint Chiefs Draw Defense,” .
. Berteau interviews, Sept. , , and Sept. , .
. Berteau interview, Sept. , ; “Minutes of the February , , Meeting
of the Ad Hoc Task Group on DoD Organization,” DJB.
. Blechman interview.
Chapter 13. Naval Gunfire
. Department of the Navy, Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year  (Alexandria, Va.:
Naval Internal Relations Activity, ), ; Michael R. Gordon, “Lehman’s Navy
Riding High, But Critics Question Its Strategy and Rapid Growth,” National Journal,
Sept. , , .
. Tower, Consequences, ; Gordon, “Lehman’s Navy Riding High.”
. Cathryn Donohoe, “Lehman Power: The Navy secretary’s hard sell for the seas,”
Washington Times, Aug. , , B.
. Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, .
. Deborah G. Meyer and Benjamin F. Schemmer, “An exclusive AFJ interview with
John F. Lehman, Secretary of the Navy,” AFJ, Nov., , .
. Bill Keller, “The Navy’s Brash Leader,” NYT, Dec. , , sec. , .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, .
. Dawson interview; Lehman, Command of the Seas, .
. Smith, Power Game, , , .
. Stubbing with Mendel, Defense Game, –; Michael Duffy, “. . . But Democrats
Call Request ‘Bloated’,” Defense Week, Feb. , , ; Vistica, Fall from Glory, .
. Powell with Persico, My American Journey, ; Smith, Power Game, .
. Weinberger interview.
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, –.
. Ibid., , , .
. Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, ; Vistica, Fall from Glory, , .
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, ; Benjamin F. Schemmer, written statement, Mar. ,
.
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, ; Bernard E. Trainor, “Man in the News: James
David Watkins; A Compassionate Pragmatist,” NYT, June , , sec. , .
. Sally Squires, “Setting the Course on AIDS; How an Admiral Turned Around
the President’s AIDS Commission,” WP, June , , Z.
. Vessey interview, Jan. , .
. Stephen J. Hedges, Andy Plattner, and Marianna I. Knight, “Admiral Watkins’s
Toughest Command,” USN&WR, Aug. , , .
. Keller, “Navy’s Brash Leader.”
. Powell with Persico, My American Journey, .
. Trevor Armbrister, “The Man Who Shaped Up the Navy,” Reader’s Digest, Dec.,
, .
. Fred Hiatt, “Feud Erupts on Navy’s Future: Pentagon Officials Tangle,” WP, Oct. ,
, A; idem., “Weinberger Asked to Mediate: Battle Rages with Navy,” WP, Oct. ,
, A.
. Keller, “Navy’s Brash Leader.”
. Donohoe, “Lehman Power,” B ; Smith, Power Game, .
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, , .
. Andy Pasztor, When the Pentagon Was for Sale: Inside America’s Biggest Defense
Scandal (New York: Scribner, ), ; Smith, Power Game, .
. Tina Rosenberg, “Fool of Ships: How one of Washington’s slickest opera-
tors keeps the Navy abloat,” New Republic, June , , ; Donohoe, “Lehman
Power,” B.
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, –.
. Ibid., –; Lehman quoted in Ruth Marcus and George C. Wilson, “Spies’ Plea
Bargains Irk Navy Secretary: Sentences Sent ‘Wrong Message’ to Fleet,” WP, Oct. ,
, A.
. Michael Weisskopf, “Weinberger Scolds Aide: Lehman’s Remarks Called ‘Inju-
dicious’,” WP, Nov. , , A; Vistica, Fall from Glory, .
. Lehman, Command of the Seas, .
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, ; Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, .
. Associated Press, “Top Admiral Calls Lehman’s Departure ‘Fresh Breeze,’” Apr. ,
.
. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “The Admirals Strike Back,” WP, May ,
, A.
. Pasztor, When the Pentagon, .
. Ibid., –.
. Benjamin F. Schemmer, author interview, Apr. , .
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Vistica, Fall from Glory, .
. Lehman, Command of the Seas, .
. Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, ; Hammond, Organizing for Defense,
–.
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, –.
. Ibid., .
. Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New
York: Random House, ), , .
. Ibid., –.

. Ibid., .
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Clifford, Counsel to the President, .
. Ibid.,  (emphasis in original).
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, , ,  (emphasis in original).
. Caraley, Politics of Military Unification,  n.
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, ; Clifford, Counsel to the President,
–.
. Clifford, Counsel to the President, ; Vandergrift quoted in Gordon W. Keiser,
The US Marine Corps and Defense Unification: –: The Politics of Survival (Wash-
ington: NDU Press, ), .
. Caraley, Politics of Military Unification, .
. Ibid., –, –.
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, –.
. Clifford, Counsel to the President, .
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, .
. Jeffrey G. Barlow, The Revolt of the Admirals: The Fight for Naval Aviation, –
 (Washington: Naval Historical Center, ), .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –.
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, , .
. Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke, –.
. Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A General’s Life (New York: Simon and
Schuster, ), .
. Bradley quoted in Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals, ; Trask and Goldberg, Depart-
ment of Defense, .
. Steven L. Rearden, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, vol. , The
Formative Years: – (Washington: OSD Historical Office, ), .
. Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals, .
. Trask and Goldberg, Department of Defense, –.
. Ibid., –.
. Gordon, “Lehman’s Navy Riding High.”
. Weinberger interview.
. Seth Cropsey, “Offense,” memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy,” Jan. ,
, box , folder “OI—JCS Reorg—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. “Primary cause of military inefficiency is meddling Congress,” San Diego Union-
Tribune, Oct. , , C.
. “Transcript: Mondale—American Legion,” Sept. , , box , folder “OI—
JCS Reorg—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Les Aspin, “A Democratic Defense Policy: Defense without nonsense,” speech
text for delivery to Committee for a Democratic Majority, Apr. , , WKB.
. Mary McGrory, “Democrats’ Party Is a Flop,” WP, July , , A; John
Lehman, “Democrats Politicize Joint Chiefs Issue—Action Memorandum,”
memorandum for the secretary of defense, Sept. , , a.n. --, box ,
folder “ JCS,” SD.
. Barrett interview, July , .
. Millard I. Barger and Deborah M. Kyle, “Over Three-fourths of Senators Are
Military Alumni; Half Served in Army,” AFJ, Apr., , ; Smith, Power Game, .
. David C. Morrison, “Backstopping Defense,” National Journal, Oct. , ,
.
. Ibid.; “For SECNAV Lunch with General Barrow,” three-by-five-inch note card
with talking points attached to Admiral Moorer’s rebuttal of CSIS report, box , folder
“OI—Defense Organization—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. J. B. Finkelstein, “JCS Reorganization Plan/Action,” memorandum for Secre-
tary Lehman, May , , box , folder “OI—JCS Reorg—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. James D. Hessman and Vincent C. Thomas Jr., “‘An Absolute Requirement for Every
American’: Interview with Secretary of the Navy John Lehman,” Seapower, Apr., , .
. “Primary cause of military inefficiency”; John Lehman, “What Defense Needs:
‘De-Organization’,” WP, May , , C; “Required Reading: Entities of Democracy:
Excerpts from a speech by the Secretary of the Navy, John F. Lehman Jr., to the Sea-
Air-Space Exposition Banquet in Washington, April , ,” NYT, Apr. , , .
. Lehman, “What Defense Needs.”
. George C. Wilson, “Navy Secretary Declares War on Bureaucracy: Crystal City
Unit Shutting Down,” WP, Apr. , , A; “Required Reading,” NYT.
. Lehman, “What Defense Needs.”
. Hessman and Thomas, “‘An Absolute Requirement’”; Lehman, “What Defense
Needs.”
. John Lehman, “JCS Reorganization Idea Is Not New or Improved,” Navy Times,
Dec. , , .
. John Lehman, “Trendy bureaucrat could beach Navy,” Cleveland Plain Dealer,
May , , ; idem., “JCS Reorganization Idea.”
. Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, , ; Carlisle A. H. Trost, author interview, Mar. ,
.
. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, .
. Rosenberg, “Fool of Ships,” .
Chapter 14. McFarlane Outflanks the Pentagon
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , .

. Cannon, President Reagan, –.
. Brock Brower, “Bud McFarlane: Semper Fi,” NYT Magazine, Jan. , , .
. Michael B. Donley, author interview, May , ; McFarlane interview, Feb. ,
.
. Tower, Consequences, –; “Agenda for Chairman Tower’s Meeting with Bud
McFarlane (//),” talking points, n.d., Defense, Foreign Relations, and Armed Ser-
vices Committee Series, box , folder , JGT.
. Tower, Consequences, .
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , .

. McFarlane coauthored a book on the Mayaguez incident: Richard G. Head,
Frisco W. Short, and McFarlane, Crisis Resolution: Presidential Decision Making in the
Mayaguez and Korean Confrontations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, ).
. Leslie H. Gelb, “McFarlane Carving His Niche,” NYT, Mar. , , B; Lou
Cannon, “McFarlane’s Hidden Hand Guides U.S. Foreign Policy,” WP, Feb. , , .
. John W. Douglass and Michael B. Donley, author interview, Aug. , .
. “Draft NSDD on Defense Reorganization,” undated paper, box , folder
“NSDD DOD Reorganization,” MBD. A National Security Decision Directive announces
a presidential decision implementing policy objectives in all areas of national security.
. Michael B. Donley, “Draft NSDD on DOD Reorganization,” memorandum for
record, Aug. , , ibid.
. “Previously Considered Options/Proposals,” point paper, n.d., box , folder
“Defense Reorganization,” MBD.
. Donley interview, May , ; Michael B. Donley, handwritten notes, box
, [President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, unfoldered
material] (), MBD.
. Donley and Douglass interview.
. Michael B. Donley, two handwritten notes, box , folder [President’s Blue
Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, unfoldered material] (), MBD.
. John M. Poindexter, “Defense Organization,” memorandum for William H. Taft
IV, Jan. , , and William H. Taft IV, “Defense Organization,” memorandum for
John M. Poindexter, Jan. , , both in a.n. --, box , folder “ DOD
(Jan.–Feb.),” SD.
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , .
. Ibid.
. Bob Dole, quoted in Smith, Power Game, .
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , .
. Donley interview.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure, and
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , July , , ; Donley
interview.
. Donley, handwritten notes, n.d. (preparatory notes for memorandum dated
Feb. , ), MBD (emphasis in original).
. Russell Baker, “Aerial Brew Haha,” NYT, Oct. , , .
. Ibid.; “Cap the Knife,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Sept. , , C.
. “The Pentagon Brew,” NYT, Oct. , , .
. “Cap the Knife,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Autho-
rization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year : Hearings before the Committee on Armed
Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, pt. , Feb. , , .
. Ibid., –; “Adjusting the Bottom Line,” Time, Feb. , , .
. Fred Hiatt, “Now, the $ Toilet Seat,” WP, Feb. , , ; Wayne Biddle,
“Price of Toilet Seat Is Cut for Navy,” NYT, Feb. , , D.
. Donley interview.

. Donley and Douglass interview.
. Ibid.; Donley interview.
. Donley and Douglass interview.
. William V. Roth Jr. to Caspar Weinberger, Mar. , , a.n. --, box
, folder “ DoD (May–June),” SD.
. William L. Dickinson to the president, Apr. , , box , folder “Blue
Ribbon Commission,” JWD.
. John W. Douglass, “Presidential Commission on Acquisition Reform,” memo-
randum for Robert C. McFarlane, Apr. , , and “Talking Points on Presidential
Acquisition Reform Commission,” prepared for Robert C. McFarlane, n.d., both in box
, folder for Apr., , JWD.
. M. B. Oglesby Jr., “Bill Dickinson (R-Alabama) Letter to the President on DOD
Procurement Reform,” memorandum for Don Regan and Bud McFarlane, Apr. ,
, box , folder “Blue Ribbon Commission,” JWD (emphasis in original).
. Donley and Douglass interview.
. Michael B. Donley and John W. Douglass, “A Broader Perspective re Ongoing
Problems in Defense Management,” memorandum for Robert C. McFarlane, Apr. ,
, box , folder “Packard (),” MBD.
. Robert C. McFarlane, author interview, May , .
. John W. Douglass and Michael B. Donley, “Meeting with Allen Chase of Con-
gressman Bill Dickinson’s Staff Re: Presidential Commission Issue,” memorandum for
John M. Poindexter, May , , box , folder  ( of ), MBD.
. William H. Taft IV, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Maurice Matloff, May ,
, OSD Historical Office, Arlington, Va.
. John W. Douglass and Michael B. Donley, “Talking Points for Meeting with Con-
gressman Bill Dickinson,” attachment to presidential briefing paper by Max Friedersdorf
and M. B. Oglesby Jr., “Meeting with Congressman Bill Dickinson,” May , , Chris-
topher M. Lehman Papers, box , folder “Blue Ribbon Commission on Ntl Defense
(Congressman Dickinson),” RRL; idem., “Meeting with SecDef re Blue Ribbon Commis-
sion on National Defense,” memorandum for Robert C. McFarlane, May , , box
, folder for May, , JWD; John M. Poindexter, handwritten notes of president’s
meeting with Congressman Dickinson on May , , n.d., RRL; Donley interview.
. Douglass and Donley, “Meeting with SecDef re Blue Ribbon Commission.”
. McFarlane interview, May , .
. “Establishment of a Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management,”
memorandum for Caspar W. Weinberger, n.d., a.n. --, box , folder “
DoD (Nov.),” SD.
. Weinberger interview.
. Weinberger’s view of McFarlane as an opponent was reported in “Washington
Whispers,” USN&WR, Mar. , , . “Defense Secretary Weinberger at first re-
sisted the Packard Commission report on reforming the Pentagon, because he feared
rivals such as former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane would use it to un-
dermine him” (ibid.).
. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, .
. Donley and Douglass interview.

. Congress, Senate, Senator Roth of Delaware speaking for an amendment to
establish a Commission on Defense Procurement, th Cong., d sess., Congressional
Record (May , ): –.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report on Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, May , , a.n. --, box , folder “ DoD (May–
June),” SD; Donley and Douglass interview.
. Wayne Biddle, “‘Horror Stories’ and Pentagon’s Budget,” NYT, May , , .
. Michael Weisskopf, “Navy Probes Grumman Prices,” WP, May , , ;
Caspar W. Weinberger, interview with ABC News, May , , as quoted in Radio-
TV Defense Dialog, DoD, May , , .
. Alan M. Kranowitz, memorandum to Robert C. McFarlane, May , , box
, folder “Packard (),” MBD.
. Robert C. McFarlane, “Readout on meeting w/Sec Weinberger,” E-mail, June ,
, ibid.
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , .
. Tim Carrington, “Panel on Arms Procurement Is Considered,” WSJ, June ,
, ; Michael Weisskopf, “Presidential Panel to Assess Defense Purchasing Prac-
tices,” WP, June , , .
. McFarlane interview, May , .
. Michael B. Donley, “Packard Commission and Goldwater-Nichols,” paper pre-
pared for Alfred Goldberg, Jan., , Donley; Donley and Douglass interview.
. McNaugher with Sperry, “Improving Military Coordination,”  and n ;
Michael Ganley, “Packard Panel on DOD Management May Derail DOD Reforms in
Congress,” AFJ, Aug., , ; Robert M. Kimmitt, memorandum, June , ,
Kimmitt Papers, RRL; McFarlane interview, Feb. , .
. McFarlane interviews, Feb.  and May , .
. “Potential Chairman for the Blue Ribbon Commission on National Defense,”
n.d., box , folder “Packard (),” MBD; Donley and Douglass interview; Donley
interview.
. David Packard, The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company (New
York: HarperBusiness, ), , –.
. Julie Pitta, “Electronics pioneer’s innovative practices are legend,” Detroit
News, Mar. , , A; Bart Barnes, “David Packard Dies at ; Founded Hewlett-
Packard,” WP, Mar. , , D.
. Michael Getler, “David Packard: presiding over a revolution,” Armed Forces
Management, Mar., , ; “The Pentagon’s powerful No.  man,” Business Week,
Mar. , , .
. “Talking Points for Discussion with Potential Chairman of the Blue Ribbon
Commission on National Defense,” n.d., box , folder “Packard (),” MBD;
McFarlane interview, Feb. , .
. McFarlane interview, Feb. , ; David Packard, interview by Alfred
Goldberg and Maurice Matloff, Nov. , , OSD Historical Office, Arlington, Va.
. Weinberger interview; Perry, Four Stars, .
. Packard interview.
. Chapman Cox, note for SECDEF, June , , a.n. --, box , folder
“ DoD (May–June),” SD.
. Jim Locher, Rick Finn, and Jeff Smith, “Presidential Commission on DoD Orga-
nization and Procurement,” memorandum for Senator Goldwater and Senator Nunn,
June , , box , folder “Memo to Goldwater/Nunn, Presidential Commission,
//,” SASC.
. Jim Locher, Rick Finn, and Jeff Smith, “Meeting with David Packard,” memo-
randum for Senator Goldwater and Senator Nunn, June , , box , folder
“Meeting with Packard, //,” SASC.
. John H. Dressendorfer, “Presidential Commission on Defense Management and
Organization,” memorandum to Adm. John M. Poindexter, June , , Donley.
. John W. Vessey Jr., “Draft NSDD—Establishment of a Blue Ribbon Panel on
Defense Management,” memorandum for the president, June , , a.n. --
, folder “ DoD (May–June),” SD; Michael B. Donley, “JCS Memo to the Presi-
dent re Blue Ribbon Commission,” memorandum for Robert C. McFarlane, June ,
, box , folder “Packard (),” MBD.
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks Announcing the Establishment of the Blue Ribbon
Commission on Defense Management,” June , , Public Papers of the Presidents of
the United States: Ronald Reagan, , Book , January –June ,  (Washington:
GPO, ), –.
. David Packard, “Mr. Packard’s Remarks,” n.d., box , folder “Packard (),”
MBD.
. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn, “Goldwater and Nunn Respond to President’s
Commission on Defense Management,” press release, June , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. Quoted in Gerald M. Boyd, “President Establishes Panel to Review Military
Spending,” NYT, June , , .
. Quoted in Ganley, “Packard Panel on DoD Management.”
. “Washington Whispers,” USN&WR, June , , .
. Crowe, Line of Fire, .
. Max L. Friedersdorf, handwritten note, n.d., MBD.
. Donley and Douglass interview.
. Donley, “Packard Commission and Goldwater-Nichols.”
Chapter 15. Trench Warfare
. James Locher, Rick Finn, and Jeff Smith, “Chapters , , and  of the Staff Study
on DoD Organization,” memorandum for the Task Force on Defense Organization,
June , , SASC.
. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to William S. Cohen, June , , SASC;
“Procedures of the Task Force,” attachment to “Overall Approach for the Committee’s
Work,” June , , SASC.
. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Defense Organization: The Need for Change:
Staff Report to the Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., Committee Print,
S. Prt. -, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Bos-
ton: Little, Brown, ), –.
. Quoted in James G. Blight, Joseph S. Nye Jr., and David A. Welch, “The Cuban
Missile Crisis Revisited,” Foreign Affairs, fall, , .
. Allison, Essence of Decision, –, . Walter S. Poole, formerly of the
Joint History Office, provided an alternative account: “Years ago, I interviewed Ad-
miral Anderson precisely about this passage and he vehemently denied the accu-
racy of it. By his telling, McNamara came to Flag Plot along with two Public Affairs
officials and asked why one destroyer was well away from the quarantine line.
When McNamara became insistent, Anderson took him to a secure area and ex-
plained that the destroyer was shadowing a Soviet sub by means which the Public
Affairs men were not cleared to know. Anderson then said in what he thought was
a jocular tone: ‘Why don’t you go back to your quarters and let us handle this?’
He was convinced that the TFX controversy was the real reason for his dismissal”
(Walter S. Poole, memorandum for James Locher, July , , copy in author’s
collection).
. SASC, Defense Organization, S. Prt. -, –.
. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, .
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, .
. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, .
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Maj. Gen. Richard A. Scholtes, USA (Ret.), meeting with Senators Cohen,
Exon, Nunn and Warner, Aug. , . General Scholtes testified before the SASC
Subcommittee on Sea Power and Force Projection in open and closed sessions dur-
ing a hearing on combating terrorism and other forms of unconventional warfare.
His testimony focused on the misemployment of special operations force in Opera-
tion Urgent Fury. Cohen arranged a private meeting with General Scholtes later in
the day. This material also derives from the author’s discussion with Jeff Smith and
Hen Johnson, who both attended the meeting. The meeting with Scholtes’s testi-
mony is also discussed in Susan L. Marquis, Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S.
Special Operations Forces (Washington: Brookings, ).
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, .
. Marquis, Unconventional Warfare, –.
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, ; Marquis, Unconventional Warfare, .
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, .
. Joint Staff, “Joint Overview of Operation Urgent Fury,” May , , JCS.
. Gabriel, Military Incompetence, –.
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, .
. Ibid.; Mark Adkin, Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada (Lexington, Mass.: Lex-
ington Books, ), .
. Powell with Persico, My American Journey, .
. H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre, It Doesn’t Take a Hero (New York:
Linda Grey Bantam Books, ), , , , .
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, ,  (McDonald quote); Gabriel, Military Incompe-
tence, , .
. SASC, Defense Organization, S. Prt. -, –.
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, , , .
. Adkin, Urgent Fury, .
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, .
. Author’s recollection confirmed by Punaro.
. Ronald H. Spector, U.S. Marines in Grenada,  (Washington: Marine Corps
History and Museums Division, ), –.
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, –, .
. Adkin, Urgent Fury, –.
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, , , ; Adm. Wesley L. McDonald, “U.S. Atlan-
tic Command: Implementing the Vital Strategy of Forward Deployment,” Defense ,
Nov.–Dec., , .
. Adkin, Urgent Fury, –.
. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Adkin, Urgent Fury, .
. George C. Wilson, “Admiral To Head Joint Chiefs,” WP, July , , .
. Bill Keller, “Politically Attuned Admiral: William James Crowe Jr.,” NYT, July
. , ; Conant with Barry, “An Officer and Intellectual,” .
. Associated Press, “Panel Recommends Confirming Crowe,” WP, July , , .
. Barry Goldwater to Ben Schemmer, July , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. Benjamin F. Schemmer to Sen. Barry Goldwater, July , , box C-, folder
, BMG.
. SASC, Defense Organization, S. Prt. -, 
. James Locher, “Validity of Analytical Methodology,” undated point paper, box
, folder “Analytical Methodology,” SASC.
. SASC, Defense Organization, S. Prt. -, –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –.
. Nunn interview.
Chapter 16. Playing the Media Card
. Nunn quoted by Arnold L. Punaro in Nunn Oral History; Punaro interview.

. Michael R. Gordon, “Uneasy Truce Prevails Between Pentagon and Reporters
Who Cover Defense News,” National Journal, Feb. , , .
. Richard Halloran, “The Pentagon; Weinberger and the Press: An Ebb in the Flow,”
NYT, Aug. , , .
. Caraley, Politics of Military Unification, , ,  n ; Gale Group, “Hanson
W(eightman) Baldwin,” Contemporary Authors Online, www.galenet.com, ; Hadley,
Straw Giant, .
. Hanson W. Baldwin, “Service Merger Battle: Remarks by Truman Enlarge Arena;
‘Compromise’ Legislation Is Assailed,” NYT, Apr. , , .
. Nunn Oral History.
. Congress, Senate, Senator Goldwater of Arizona speaking on congressional
oversight of national defense, th Congress, st sess., Congressional Record (Oct. ,
): –.
. Congress, Senate, Senator Nunn of Georgia speaking on congressional over-
sight of national defense, th Congress, st sess., Congressional Record (Oct. , ):
–.
. Ibid., Goldwater, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Nunn, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Goldwater, Oct. , : –.
. Ibid., Nunn, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Goldwater Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Nunn, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Goldwater, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Nunn, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Nunn, Oct. , , –.
. Ibid., Goldwater, Oct. , , –.
. Jeffrey H. Smith quoting Goldwater, Nunn Oral History.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Organization, Structure and
on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., pt. , July , , .
. Eliot Brenner, “Goldwater: Problems in Congress hinder military superiority,”
UPI, Oct. , ; Lawrence L. Knutson, “Interservice Rivalries Still Plaguing Plan-
ners, Senators Say,” Associated Press, Oct. , ; Eliot Brenner, “Goldwater: Service
loyalty hampers joint chiefs,” UPI, Oct. , .
. Bill Keller, “ Key Senators Join in Assault on the Military,” NYT, Oct. , ,
; Evan Thomas and Bruce van Voorst, “Drums along the Potomac: The military es-
tablishment is besieged by some of its staunchest supporters,” Time, Oct. , , .
. Nunn interview.
. Nunn Oral History.
. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson quoted in G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson
and the American Civil War, vol.  (London: Longman’s, Green, ).
. Punaro interview.

. Punaro in Nunn Oral History.
Chapter 17. Gathering of Eagles
. Nunn Oral History.

. Goldwater, Congressional Record—Senate (Oct. , ): .
. Huntington interview.
. Robert S. Greenberger, “Soldier on the Spot: U.S. General Is Playing Crucial Role
in Setting Central America Policy—Army’s Paul Gorman Keeps Strong Military Pres-
ence Via ‘Training Exercises’—Is It a ‘Backdoor’ Buildup?” WSJ, June , , .
. Paul F. Gorman, author interview, May , .
. Bernard E. Trainor, author interview, Nov. , .
. John Hamre, “Wrapup Session,” typed notes of wrap-up session comments, Oct. ,
, JRL.
. James Locher, “Secretary Schlesinger’s comments,” handwritten notes, n.d., JRL.
. Hamre, “Wrapup Session.”
. Goldwater quoted in Thomas H. Moorer, “Notes on Camp Hill,” Oct. , .
This two-page paper was attached to a memorandum to Admiral Watkins from Vice
Adm. D. S. Jones, Oct. , , CNO. A copy is also in box , folder “OI—JCS Reorg—
” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Goldwater, Congressional Record—Senate (Oct. , ): .
. Huntington interview.
. William K. Brehm, author interview, Oct. , .
. Trainor interview, Nov. , .
. Moorer, “Notes on Camp Hill.”
. Goldwater interview.
Chapter 18. Expedition into Hostile Territory
. Quoted in Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. , Soldier, General of the Army,

President-Elect: – (New York: Simon and Schuster, ), .
. Diary entry, Jan. , , DDEL. An attachment listed five major meetings dur-
ing which Eisenhower discussed “interservice rivalries.”
. A. J. Goodpaster, memorandum for record, Nov. , , DDEL.
. Dwight D. Eisenhower to Everett Hazlett, Aug. , , reproduced in
Eisenhower, Mandate for Change: – (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ),
.
. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Touchstone,
), .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Nomination of William H. Taft
IV, to Be Deputy Secretary of Defense: Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services,
th Cong., d sess., S. Hrg. -, Jan. , , , , .
. Congress, Senate, Senator Goldwater of Arizona speaking against the nomina-

tion of William H. Taft IV, of Virginia, to be Deputy Secretary of Defense, th Cong.,
d sess., Congressional Record—Senate (Feb. , ): .
Chapter 19. Seizing the High Ground
. George C. Wilson, “Senate Study Suggests Reorganizing Pentagon: Need for Ac-
countability Is Cited,” WP, Oct. , , .
. George C. Wilson, “Military Reform to Be Unveiled,” WP, Oct. , , .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Reorganization of the Depart-
ment of Defense: Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess.,
S. Hrg. -, Oct. ; Nov. , , , ; Dec. , , , , , , –.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Department of Defense, “Radio-TV Defense Dialog,” Oct. ,  (broadcasts of
Oct. , ); Vanderbilt Television News Archive, Television News Index and Ab-
stracts, Oct., , . Also available at www.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
. “Radio-TV Defense Dialog,” ; Television News Index and Abstracts, –.
. Michael Weisskopf, “Pentagon Is Mismanaged, Report Says: Replacement of
Joint Chiefs, Reorganization Urged by Senators,” WP, Oct. , , .
. Jim Stewart, “Panel suggests dissolving Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Oct. , , At-
lanta Journal, ; Bill Keller, “Proposed Revamping of Military Calls for Disbanding Joint
Chiefs,” NYT, Oct. , , ; Charles W. Corddry, “Senate report suggests broad
military reforms: Panel opens probe of Pentagon, forces,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. , ,
; Vernon A. Guidry Jr., “Coordination said to be a problem,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. ,
, ; Tim Carrington, “Senators Clash Over Proposal to Shift Power at Pentagon
Away From Services,” WSJ, Oct. , , .
. Reuters, “Pentagon assails notion of reorganizing military,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. ,
, .
. Seth Cropsey, “How Not to Reform Defense,” New York Post, Oct. , , .
. “Redoing defense,” Washington Times, Oct. , , A.
. Robert A. Kittle with Melissa Healy and Orr Kelly, “Pentagon Comes Under Fire
from Its Friends,” USN&WR, Oct. , , ; Tom Morganthau with Kim Willenson
and John Barry, “The Pentagon Under Siege,” Newsweek, Oct. , , .
. “Defense Organization: The Need for Change,” AFJ, Oct., .
Chapter 20. Transition to the Offensive
. McNaugher with Sperry, “Improving Military Coordination,” –.

. Mark Sullivan, untitled article, States News Service, Nov. , .
. Meyer, author interview, June , .
. Archie D. Barrett, “Meeting with Republican leaders—--,” handwritten
notes, ADB.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, ; George C.
Wilson, “Weinberger Surrounded by Snipers,” WP, Nov. , , .
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, , , .

. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Capt. Richard DeBobes, “SecDef Testimony Before SASC,” memorandum for
Admiral Crowe, Nov. , , JCS.
. Kaufman interview.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memoran-
dum for the president, Nov. , , a.n. --, box , folder “ DoD
(Nov.),” SD.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, .
. Ibid., .
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memoran-
dum for the president, Nov. , , a.n. --, box , folder “ DoD
(Nov.),” SD.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Crowe interview.
. Weinberger to Barry Goldwater, Dec. , , a.n. --, box , folder
“ DoD (Dec.),” SD.
. Caspar W. Weinberger, “Weekly Report of Defense Activities,” memorandum
for the president, Dec. , , ibid.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, –.
. Ibid., , .
. Edgar F. Raines Jr., “Report on the Proceedings of the U.S. Army Special Review
Committee on the Department of Defense Organization, – November ,” memo-
randum for record, Dec. , , CHM.
. Story related by Richard H. Witherspoon.
. Raines, “Report.”
. “Army Special Review Committee on DoD Organization,” briefing, Nov. ,
, personal papers of Daniel J. Kaufman.
. Kaufman interview.
. P. X. Kelley, “Remarks by General P. X. Kelley,” June , , JRL.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, –, –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., ; Nunn Oral History.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, ; Nunn inter-
view.
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .

. James Locher, Richard Finn, and Jeff Smith, “Draft Defense Organization Bill,”
memorandum to General Jones, Bill Brehm, John Kester, Phil Odeen, Jan. , ,
WKB.
. Goldwater interview.
. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., Jan. , , JCS.
. Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, “Goldwater and Nunn Release
Summary of Staff Proposal on Defense Reorganization,” Jan. , , SASC.
. John Lehman, handwritten letters to Bush, Weinberger, and Poindexter, Jan. ,
, box , folder “OI—JCS Reorg—” (folder ), JFL.
Chapter 21. The Packard Commission Reinforces
. Barry Goldwater to David Packard, Sept. , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. “President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, Organizational
Working Notes, September ,” box , file “President’s Blue Ribbon Commis-
sion on Defense Management [Meetings: Minutes and Notes],” PSS.
. Ronald Reagan, “President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Manage-
ment,” Executive Order , July , , box A, file “JGR (John G. Roberts
Jr.)/Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management,” RRL; Dawson interview.
. David Packard, “Talking Points,” press statement, Oct. , , box ,
folder “President’s Blue Ribbon Cmsn on Defense Management,” JWD.
. Berteau interview, Sept. , .
. Gorman interview, May , .
. James Locher, Richard Finn, and Jeff Smith, “Meeting with Mr. Packard,” memo-
randum for Senator Goldwater and Senator Nunn, Nov. , , SASC.
. Nunn Oral History.
. Dawson interview.
. Gorman interview.
. Ibid.
. McNaugher with Sperry, “Improving Military Coordination,” .
. Berteau interview, Sept. , ; Gorman interview.
. Dawson interview.
. Michael B. Donley, author interview, May , .
. “Memorandum for the Record,” Jan. , , box , folder “Eisenhower
materials,” PSS.
. Packard interview.
. Donley interview, May , .
. John M. Poindexter, “Comparing the Packard Commission with the Eisenhower
Initiatives in Defense Management,” memorandum for the president, Feb. , ,
JWD.
. “Outline of Commission Report,” undated paper, box , folder “Jan., 
[Selected Documents],” JWD; “Rank of the JCS Vice Chairman,” undated paper, SASC;
Rhett Dawson, “Meeting with Nunn & Goldwater, //,” handwritten notes,
Dawson Papers, OA; Goldwater and Nunn, box , RLL.
. Nunn Oral History; Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to David Packard, Feb. ,
, SASC.
Chapter 22. The Decisive Battle
. John Lehman to Barry Goldwater, Feb. , , SASC.

. Kelley to Goldwater, Feb. , .
. Watkins to Goldwater, Feb. , .
. “Opening Statement by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ.), Chairman, Commit-
tee on Armed Services, for the Markup Session on the Legislative Proposal on Defense
Reorganization, February , ,” SASC.
. “Opening Statement by Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA.), Ranking Minority Member,
Committee on Armed Services, for the Markup Session on the Legislative Proposal on
Defense Reorganization, February , ,” SASC.
. Gerald J. Smith interview.
. Michael Ganley, “How’s That Again? You’re Opposed to What?” AFJ, Mar., , .
. “Opening Statement by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona), Chairman, Com-
mittee on Armed Services, for the Markup Session on the Legislative Proposal on De-
fense Reorganization, February , ,” SASC.
. Nunn Oral History.
. Congress, Senate, Senator Warner of Virginia speaking on the Department of
Defense Reorganization Act of , S. , th Cong., d sess., Congressional Record
(May , ): ; Senator Levin, ibid., .
. Christopher K. Mellon, author interview, Aug. , .
. Punaro interview.
. Richard Finn, “Written Amendments Considered during Markup,” table, Mar. ,
, RDF; Chuck Alsup, “Summary of Executive Markup of DoD Reorganization Act
of ,” June , , JRL.
. Punaro interview.
. Mellon interview.
. James Locher, Richard Finn, and Jeff Smith, “Comparison of the Packard
Commission’s Recommendations and the Committee’s Draft Bill on Defense Reorga-
nization,” memorandum for the SASC, Mar. , , SASC; President’s Blue Ribbon
Commission on Defense Management, An Interim Report to the President (Washing-
ton: President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, ), ; SASC,
“Goldwater and Nunn Praise Packard Commission Report,” Feb. , , SASC.
. Chuck Alsup, telephone conversation with author, Feb. , .
. Mellon interview.
. Finn, “Written Amendments;” Alsup, “Summary.”
. Allan W. Cameron, “Final Vote on Defense Organization Bill,” memorandum to
Senator Denton, Mar. , , SASC.
. Goldwater interview.
. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Goldwater and the Whiz Kids,” WP, Mar. ,
, A.
. Punaro interview.
Chapter 23. Mopping-Up Operations
. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to Committee Colleagues, Apr. , , SASC.
. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Reorganization Act
of : Report [To accompany S. ] together with Additional Views, th Cong., d
sess., Apr. , , Report -, .
. Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, author interview, Sept. , .
. Reorganization of the Department of Defense, S. Hrg. -, .
. Stephen E. Anno and William E. Einspahr, Command and Control and Communica-
tions Lessons Learned: Iranian Rescue, Falklands Conflict, Grenada Invasion, Libya Raid
(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, ), .
. Crowe, Line of Fire, .
. USCINCEUR, “Draft Strawman Unified Action Armed Forces (JCS Pub),” mes-
sage to JCS, Apr. , , CNO.
. CNO executive assistant to CNO, Apr. , , CNO (emphasis in original).
. Adm. James D. Watkins, “Draft Strawman Unified Action Armed Forces (JCS Pub ),
CNO Comment Sheet, Apr. , , CNO (emphasis in original).
. Gen. Bernard W. Rogers to Sam Nunn with Secretary Lehman’s message at-
tached, May , , SASC.
. Punaro interview.
. Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, “Implementation of the Recommendations of
Your Commission on Defense Management,” memorandum for the president, n.d., MBD;
idem., “Implementation of the Recommendations of the President’s Commission on
Defense Management,” memorandum for Caspar W. Weinberger, Mar. , , RRL.
. “Radio Address to the Nation on Defense Establishment Reform,” Apr. , ,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, , Book , January
 to June ,  (Washington: GPO, ), –.
. “Message to the Congress Outlining Proposals for Improving the Organization
of the Defense Establishment,” Apr. , , ibid., –.
. John M. Poindexter, “Special Message to Congress on Defense Reorganization,”
memorandum for the president, Apr. , , MBD.
. Barry Goldwater to the president, Apr. , , box C-, folder , BMG.
. “S. —Department of Defense Reorganization Act of ,” statement of
administration policy, Apr. , , Ronald K. Sable Papers, box , file “DoD
Reorganization [ of ],” RRL.
. Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to Caspar W. Weinberger, May , , SASC.
. Romee L. Brownlee, author interview, Mar. , .
. Congress, Senate, Senator Nunn of Georgia speaking on the Department of
Defense Reorganization Act of , S. , th Cong., d sess., Congressional Record
(May , ): .
. Goldwater quoted in George C. Wilson, “Pentagon Reform Bill Sweeps Through
Senate,” WP, May , , A.
. Peter Ross Range, “Aspin’s Ambition: The upstart head of the House Armed
Services Committee is determined to change the way the Pentagon thinks,” WP Maga-
zine, May , , .
. Archie D. Barrett, author interview, May , .

. Range, “Aspin’s Ambition.”
. Barrett interview, July , .
. “H. R. —Joint Chiefs of Staff Reorganization Act of ,” statement of
administration policy, Nov. , , ADB.
. Barrett interview, July , .
. Range, “Aspin’s Ambition.”
. Barrett interview, July , .
. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Background Material on Struc-
tural Reform of the Department of Defense Compiled by the Staff of the Committee on
Armed Services, th Cong., d sess., March , Committee Print no. .
. Barrett interviews, July , , and May , .
. Weinberger to Barry M. Goldwater, May , , SASC.
. Barrett, “Mark up of defense organization bill,” memorandum for Chairman
Aspin, June , , ADB.
. Crowe interview.
. Barrett interview, July , ; Barrett, “Mark up of defense organization bill.”
. Full Committee Consideration, HASC no. -, ; Barrett interview, July ,
.
. Full Committee Consideration, HASC no. -, ; Barrett interview, Sept. ,
.
. Barry Goldwater, “Opening Statement by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ari-
zona), Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, for the Conference Committee Meet-
ing, August , ,” SASC.
. John F. Lally, “House-Senate Committee of Conference on H.R. ,” minutes,
Sept. , , JRL.
. HASC, “House-Senate Conference Wraps Up Defense Reorganization Bill,”
News Release, Sept. , , box , folder “Mr. Nichols,” WFN; Thomas H. Moorer
to Arch Barrett, Oct. , , box , folder “Administration,” ADB.
Chapter 24. The Commander in Chief Approves
. Donley, author interview, May , .

. Congress, House, Congressman Annunzio of Illinois speaking on bills and joint
resolutions presented to the president, th Cong., d sess., Congressional Record (Sept.
, ): .
. William H. Taft IV to James C. Miller III, Sept. , , a.n. --, box
, folder “ DoD (Aug.–Sept.),” SD.
. Chapman B. Cox, “The Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of
—ACTION MEMORANDUM,” memorandum for the deputy secretary of defense,
Sept. , , ibid.
. “Defense Reorganization,” unsigned memorandum for the secretary of defense,
filed on Sept. , , box , folder “OI—JSC Reorg—” (folder  of ), JFL.
. Unsigned letter to Patrick J. Buchanan, n.d., box , folder “OI—JSC Reorg—
” (folder  of ), JFL (emphasis in original).
. Unsigned letter to Ronald W. Reagan, n.d., ibid (emphasis in original).

. James C. Miller III, “Enrolled Bill H.R. —Goldwater-Nichols Department of
Defense Reorganization Act of ,” memorandum for the president, Sept. , ,
White House Office of the Executive Clerk: Bill Reports, box , Oct. ,  [H.R.
], RRL.
. David L. Chew, note for Mr. President, Sept. , , attached to ibid.
. C. Dean McGrath Jr., “Enrolled Bill H.R. : Goldwater-Nichols Department
of Defense Reorganization Act of ,” memorandum for Peter J. Wallison, Sept. ,
, McGrath Papers, box , folder “CDM/Defense Reorganization/Goldwater-
Nichols (),” RRL.
. Chew note.
. “Draft List of Attendees: Godwin Photo/Signing Ceremony,” Rodney B.
McDaniel Papers, box , RRL.
. John W. Douglass, “Signing Ceremony for the Defense Reorganization Bill and
Meeting with Dick Godwin,” memorandum for John M. Poindexter, Sept. , ,
JWD.
. Punaro interview.
. Rodney B. McDaniel, “Signing Ceremony for the Defense Reorganization Bill
and Meeting with Dick Godwin,” memorandum for David L. Chew, n.d., box ,
folder “Proposed DoD Reorganization Signing Ceremony and President’s Meeting
with Godwin,” MBD.
. William L. Ball III, assistant to Reagan for congressional affairs, discussion with
author, Jan., .
. Christine E. Cowart, author interview, Mar. , .
. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan: , Book ,
June  to December ,  (Washington, GPO, ), .
Epilogue. Unified at Last
. Congress, House, Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of

: Conference Report [To accompany H.R. ], th Cong., d sess., Report -
, sec. .
. John G. Kester, “The Office of the Secretary of Defense With a Strengthened
Joint Staff System,” in Toward a More Effective Defense, ed. Blechman and Lynn, .
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Defense Organization: The Need
for Change: Staff Report to the Committee on Armed Services, th Cong., st sess., S. Prt.
-, Oct. , , , .
. Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, Report -, .
. “About Fighting and Winning Wars—An Interview with Dick Cheney,” U.S. Na-
val Institute Proceedings , no.  (May, ): .
. Richard H. Kohn, “The Crisis in Military-Civilian Relations,” National Interest,
spring, , –.
. Eliot A. Cohen, “What To Do About National Defense,” Commentary , no. 
(Nov., ): –.
. Powell with Persico, My American Journey, –.
. Christopher Allan Yuknis, “The Goldwater-Nichols Act of —An Interim

Assessment,” in Essays on Strategy X, ed. Mary A. Sommerville (Washington: NDU
Press, ), ; “About Fighting,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, ; Gen. John M.
Shalikashvili, “Goldwater-Nichols: Ten Years From Now,” remarks, NDU Goldwater-
Nichols Symposium, Dec. , .
. John F. Lehman and Harvey Sicherman, “America’s Military Problems and
How to Fix Them,” Foreign Policy Research Institute WIRE: A Catalyst for Ideas , no. 
(Feb., ), www.fpri.org.
. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Operation Desert Shield/Desert
Storm: Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, d Cong., st sess., Apr. ,
May , , , , June , , , , ; idem., Nominations Before the Senate Armed
Services Committee, First Session, rd Congress: Hearings before the Committee on
Armed Services, rd Cong., st sess., S. Hrg. -, Jan.–Nov., , .
. Shalikashvili, “Goldwater-Nichols.”
. Gen. Henry H. Shelton, author interview, Apr. , .
. Robert W. Komer, “Strategymaking in the Pentagon,” in Reorganizing America’s
Defense, ed. Robert J. Art et al., –.
. Shalikashvili, “Goldwater-Nichols”; Shelton interview; David Shilling and
Christopher Lamb, author interview, May , .
. Bill Owens with Ed Offley, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar-Straus-
Giroux, ), .
. SASC, Defense Organization, .
. Ibid., .
. “About Fighting,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, ; “The Chairman as Princi-
pal Military Adviser: An Interview with Colin L. Powell,” JFQ, autumn , ; SASC,
Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, .
. Crowe, Line of Fire, ; Shelton interview.
. SASC, Defense Organization, .
. “The Chairman,” ; Malcolm S. Forbes Jr., “Fact and Comment,” Forbes, Mar. ,
, –; Katherine Boo, “How Congress Won the War in the Gulf,” Washington
Monthly, Oct., , .
. William J. Perry, speech honoring Sen. Sam Nunn, the Pentagon, July , ,
JRL, .
. Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, remarks, Association of the United States Army
Land Warfare Forum Breakfast, Sept. , , JRL; Commission on Roles and Missions
of the Armed Forces, Directions for Defense (Washington: GPO, ), –.
. Shelton interview; Michael B. Donley, “It’s Time for DoD to Establish a Joint
Budget,” unpublished paper, May , , Donley.
. Shelton interview.
. Sam Nunn, “Future Trends in Defense Organization,” JFQ, autumn, , ;
Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, “A Word from the Chairman,” JFQ, autumn–winter –
, .
. Col. Mackubin T. Owens Jr., “Goldwater-Nichols: A Ten-Year Retrospective,”
Marine Corps Gazette, Dec., , –; Paul K. Van Riper, “More on innovations and
jointness,” Marine Corps Gazette, Mar., , –.
. William S. Cohen, “Message from the Secretary,” Defense Reform Initiative: The
Business Strategy for Defense in the st Century (Washington: Department of Defense,
), i.
. John P. Kotter, Leading Change (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, ),
.
. Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett, “Changing the Role of Top
Management: Beyond Structure to Processes,” Harvard Business Review , no.  (Jan.–
Feb., ): .
. Office of Net Assessment,  Net Assessment Summer Study: Sustaining Inno-
vation in the U.S. Military (Washington: Department of Defense, ), .
. Michael Hammer, “Beyond the End of Management” in Rethinking the Future,
ed. Rowan Gibson (London: Nicholas Brealey, ), .
. Peter Senge, “Through the Eye of the Needle,” in ibid., –.
. U.S. Commission on National Security/st Century, Seeking a National Strategy
(Washington: U.S. Commission on National Security/st Century, ), ; Nunn,
“Future Trends,” .
. Perry, speech honoring Sam Nunn, ; Owens, “‘Jointness’ is his Job,” Govern-
ment Executive, Apr., , ; Wickham interview.
Index 507
INDEX
Photos are indicated with bold type.
ABC World News Tonight,  SASC hearings/report, , , ;
Abraham Lincoln episode,  Weinberger’s response to authoriza-
Abshire, David,  tion report/questions, ; White’s
acquisition process: budget impact, ; bill, 
commission proposals, –; Armey, Richard, 
Douglass/Cook discussion about, Armitage, Richard L., 
; media coverage, , , – army: Afghanistan war, ; Brown’s
, ; Weinberger’s testimony, , comments, –; Grenada invasion,
,  –; and HASC hearings
Ad Hoc Task Group on Defense Organiza- testimonies, –; headquarters
tion (Cox Committee), –,  staffing change, ; historic
Adkin, Mark,  reorganization efforts, –, –;
Afghanistan, army-directed air strikes, Task Force retreat, , , . See
 also command structure, Pacific
air force: Afghanistan war, ; B- theater; Vessey, John W., Jr.
episode, –; Brown’s comments, Army Special Review Committee, 
–; and HASC hearings testimo- Arnold, Henry H. “Hap,” , , , 
nies, –; headquarters staffing Art, Robert J., 
change, ; historic reorganization Aspen Institute, 
efforts, –, –; Iranian rescue Aspin, Les, , , , , , ,
mission, –; Libya bombing, – , , –, 
; and Nixon’s Blue Ribbon panel, Association of Naval Aviation, –,
. See also command structure, 
Pacific theater Atlanta Constitution, 
Aldridge, Edward C. “Pete,”  Atlanta Journal, 
Allen, Lew, Jr., , , ,  Atlantic Command and Grenada
Allen, Richard V., , ,  invasion, –, –, , ,
Ambrose, James R.,  –, , 
An Analysis of Proposed Joint Chiefs of AWACS story, –
Staff Reorganization (Hudson
Institute), –
Anderson, George W., Jr., , , B- bomber decision, 
n B- program, , 
Andricos, G. Mike,  B- bomber proposal, –
Arbuckle, Ernest C.,  Baker, Howard, 
Armed Forces Journal: acquisition Baldwin, Hanson W., –
commission proposals, ; Barrett’s Baldwin, J. A. “Jack,” –
book, ; HASC hearings, , , , Baltimore Sun, , 
; H.R. , ; H.R. , ; Banner, USS, –
Jones’s article, ; Meyer’s article, ; Barlow, Jeffrey G., 
508 Index
Barrett, Archie D.: and Aspin, –; Blue Ribbon Defense Panel (Nixon’s), ,
background, –; conference , 
negotiations/report, , , , Boren, David L., 
, , –, ; on Heritage Bowen, USS, 
Foundation report, ; on H.R. Bradley, Omar N., –, 
, ; JCS breakfast meeting, – Brady, Nicholas F., , –, , 
; Jones’s testimony, –; on Brehm, William K., –, , –, ,
Kelley’s appearance, ; legislative , , , , 
drafts, , –; Meyer’s testimony, Brehm Report (CSSG study), –, ,
–; on Nichols, , , ; 
role in subcommittee hearings, , Bringle, William F., 
–; on Skelton’s bill, n; Task Broder, David, –
Force briefing, ; on White’s Brown, Barbara B., , , , ,
legislative drafts,  , 
Barrow, Robert H., , , , –, , Brown, George S., 
, , ,  Brown, Harold, –, , , –,
Barry Goldwater Department of Defense , , 
Reorganization Act of . See S. Brownlee, Romee L. “Les,” , 
 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, , 
Battle of Leyte Gulf, – Buchanan, Patrick J., 
Bay of Pigs,  budget process: CSIS report, ;
Beard, Robin,  Goldwater/Nunn speeches, ,
Beckwith, Charles A.,  ; Heritage Foundation report, ;
Beirut bombing: described, , –; and Joint Forces Command, ;
Goldwater’s comments, ; HASC Jones’s comments, ; Task Force
hearings/report, –, –; discussions, 
Lehman’s recommendation, ; budgets for defense: authorization bills,
Long Commission report, –, –; Reagan administration, ,
; McFarlane’s comments, ; ; and spare parts acquisition
Nichols’s comments, –; SASC stories, 
hearings, –; Weinberger’s Builder, Carl H., 
actions, –. See also Lebanon Burch, Michael, –
mission Burchinal, David A., 
Bell, Thomas D., Jr.,  Burke, Arleigh A., , , , ,
Bennet, Douglas J., – 
Bennett, Charles,  Bush, George H. W., , , , ,
Berteau, David, , ,  
Bill Nichols Department of Defense Business Week, 
Reorganization Act of  (H.R. Butts, John, 
), –. See also H.R. 
(Goldwater–Nichols Act) Cabot, Louis W., , 
Bingaman, Jeff, , , , , , Cambodia, Mayaguez seizure, , 
, ,  Cameron, Allan W., , –
Bishop, Maurice,  Cannon, Lou, 
Blechman, Barry M., –, , , Carlucci, Frank C., , , , ,
 , , 
Blue Ribbon Commission of Defense Carney, William, 
Management (Reagan’s). See Packard Carroll, Eugene J., Jr., 
Commission Carter, Jimmy, , , , 
Index 509
Carter administration, –, –, Chiarelli, Peter W., 

–,  Chicago Tribune, 
Carter, Powell,  chief of naval operations (CNO), 
Casey, William,  Christopher, George, 
CBS Evening News,  Churchill, Winston, 
Center for Naval Analyses,  civilian control: after Goldwater-Nichols
Center for Strategic and International Act, –, ; Eisenhower
Studies (CSIS), –, , , presidency, –; Goldwater’s
–,  comments/speech, , –;
chain of command. See command Hittle’s comments, ; Hudson
structure Institute report, –; Jones’s
chairman’s role (JCS): after Goldwater- comments, –; Lehman’s
Nichols Act, –, , , ; comments, , , ; Nunn’s
Allen’s comments, ; Army Special comments, ; Roosevelt’s change,
Review Committee recommendation, –; Task Force discussions, –
; Brown’s recommendations, ; ; Tower’s comments, ; Truman
Brzezinski’s testimony, ; CNO initiatives, –. See also defense
Select Panel report, ; CSIS report, secretary’s role
; CSSG study, , –; Hanson’s Clark, Asa A. “Ace,” 
recommendations, ; Heritage Clark, William P., , , 
Foundation report, , ; Hittle’s Claytor, W. Graham, Jr., –
comments, ; Jones’s comments, Clifford, Clark M., , , , 
, , , , ; Krulak’s opinion, CNO Select Panel, –
; Lehman’s comments, , – Cohen, Eliot, 
; Meyer’s recommendation, , ; Cohen, William S.: characterized, ,
Moorer’s comments, ; Murray’s , ; CSIS study, ; Defense
comments, ; Nichols’s bill, – Reform Initiative, ; on Goldwater,
, ; Nunn’s comments, ; ; on Lehman, ; on Nunn, ;
Packard Commission recommenda- SASC draft bill, ; SASC hearings,
tions, –; Reagan administration , –, –; Scholtes’s
proposal, –; Reagan’s request, testimony, n; spare parts
–; Rogers’s comments, ; acquisition hearings, ; Task
SASC draft bill, –; Schlesinger’s Force work, , , , ; on
comments/testimony, –, ; Weinberger, 
Scowcroft’s testimony, ; Skelton’s Cohen-Nunn Amendment, 
bill, ; Symington committee Collins, J. Lawton, 
proposal, ; Task Force discussions, command structure: after Goldwater-
; and Task Force staff report Nichols Act, –, –; CNO
strategy, ; Taylor’s recommenda- Select Panel report, ; CSIS report,
tions, –; Warner’s amendments, , ; Cuban missile crisis, –
; Weinberger’s recommendations, ; Cushman’s study, –;
, , ; White’s bill, , , . See Eisenhower years, –; Goldwater/
also vice chairman proposals Nunn speeches, , ; Gorman’s
Chairman’s Special Study Group comments, ; Grenada invasion,
(Brehm-led), –, ,  , –; Heritage Foundation
Chancellor, John,  report, ; Iranian rescue mission,
Chase, Alan C., ,  –; JCS’s  report, ; Jones’s
Cheney, Richard B., , , ,  comments, , , ; Krulak’s
Chew, David L.,  opinion, ; Laird’s comments, ;
510 Index
command structure (cont.) Vessey’s comments, –;

Lebanon mission, , , , – Weinberger’s comments, –;
, –, –; Lehman’s White’s bill, 
comments, , ; Libya bombing, Congressional Military Reform Caucus,
; and National Security Act, – 
; naval tradition, ; Nichols’ contingency planning: after Goldwater-
comments, –; Nichols’s bill, Nichols Act, –; Task Force
–; Nunn’s statements, , ; discussions, 
Reagan administration proposal, – Cook, Richard, 
; Rogers’s comments, ; SASC Cooke, David O. “Doc,” –
draft bill, ; Schlesinger’s testi- Coolidge, Charles A., 
mony, ; Symington committee Corbett, William T., –, , –
proposal, ; Task Force report/ , 
discussions, –, ; Taylor’s Corcoran, Charles A., 
recommendations, –; Courter, James, , 
Warner’s amendments, –; Cover, Robert W., , 
White’s bill,  Cowan, William V., 
command structure, Pacific theater: Cowart, Chris, , , , 
Crowe’s comments, –; Cox, Chapman B., , –, ,
Eisenhower’s proposal, –; , –
Korean conflict, –; Locher’s Cox Committee, –, 
inquiry, , –; Nightmare Coyne, William J., –
Range example, –; Pearl Harbor Crackel, Theodore J., –, –
disaster, , –, –; Pueblo Crommelin, John G., 
incident, , –, ; World Cropsey, Seth, , , , , ,
War II, – , , 
Commission on Roles and Missions,  Crowe, William J., Jr. “Bill”: appointment
Committee on Civilian-Military Relation- as JCS chairman, , ; character-
ships (Hudson Institute), – ized, , –; on Goldwater-Nichols
communication failures: Brown’s Act, ; Goldwater/Nunn draft bill,
comments, –; Grenada invasion, ; Goldwater/Nunn meeting, –,
, –, ; Iranian rescue , –; JCS breakfast meeting,
mission, ; Korean conflict, ; ; on Lebanon command struc-
Leyte Gulf battle, –; Pueblo ture, ; on Lehman, ; on Libya
incident,  bombing, ; on Meyer, ; on
“A Concept for Future Organization of Pacific command structure, –,
the United States Armed Forces” ; on Packard Commission, ;
(Goldwater),  photos, ; Pueblo capture, ;
conflict of interest (JCS): Crowe’s Reagan meeting, ; SASC hearing,
comments, ; CSSG study, , , ; Task Force briefing, , ; on
; Eisenhower’s experience, –; Weinberger, , , ; and
Goldwater/Nunn speeches, –; Weinberger’s SASC testimony, 
Jones’s comments, , , –; C-SPAN, , 
Locher’s experience, ; Meyer’s Cuban missile crisis, –, n
comments, ; Moorer’s comments, Cushman, John H., –, , –,
; Schlesinger’s testimony, ; 
Skelton’s bill, ; Task Force discus-
sions, –; Taylor’s comments, Daniel, Dan, , , 
; Vessey’s approach, –; Daniels, Josephus, 
Index 511
Davis, Vincent,  discussions, –, –;

Dawson, Rhett B., , , –, , Tower’s comments, ; Truman
, , ,  years, –; Vessey’s comments,
Deagle, Edwin A., –,  ; Weinberger’s comments, ;
DeBobes, Richard D. (Rick), ,  White’s bill, , . See also civilian
Defense Assessment Project (Heritage control
Foundation), – Defense Week, , 
defense authorization bill (): Defense Weekly, 
amendments proposed, –; Denfeld, Louis E., –
conference negotiations, – Denton, Jeremiah, , –, , ,
defense authorization bill (), – , , , 
defense authorization bill (),  deputy chairman proposals. See vice
Defense Officer Personnel Management chairman proposals
Act,  Desert One, , –, 
Defense Organization: The Need for Change Desert Shield/Storm, , –
(SASC staff report): Locher’s plan, Dickinson, William L., –, , ,
–; McGovern’s opposition , , , 
strategies, –; media coverage, Dill, Sir John, 
–; printing of, –. See also Directors & Boards, 
Senate Armed Services Committee Dixon, Alan, , , 
(Tower-led); Task Force on Defense Dole, Bob, 
Organization (Goldwater/Nunn-led) Donley, Michael B. (Mike): background,
Defense Organization Project (Roosevelt –; on budget process, ;
Center), . See also Center for commission proposals, –, ,
Strategic and International Studies , ; Cox Committee, , ;
(CSIS) Goldwater/Nunn letter to
Defense Organization Study (Carter- Weinberger, –; H.R. 
initiated),  signing ceremony, ; on JCS
Defense Reform Initiative (Cohen’s),  briefings, ; on McFarlane, ;
Defense Reorganization Act of , , meeting about Goldwater-Nichols
 Act, –; on Packard, ;
defense secretary’s role: after Goldwater- Packard Commission, –; on
Nichols Act, –, , , ; politics of reorganization, ;
Barrett’s comments, ; Brzezinski’s reorganization perspective, –;
recommendation, ; Eisenhower reorganization proposals, –;
presidency, –; Eisenhower’s SASC report briefing, ; SASC
comments, –; Hittle’s comments, study, , ; spare parts acquisi-
; Hudson Institute report, , tion stories, ; Task Force briefing,
; Jones’s comments, , , ; ; Task Force staff report, ; on
Krulak’s opinion, –; Lehman’s Vessey’s memorandum, 
arguments, ; and National Dotson, Robert S. “Steve,” 
Security Act, –; Nunn’s com- Dougherty, Russell E., 
ments/speech, , –; Packard Douglass, John: background, –;
Commission, ; Reagan administra- H.R.  signing ceremony, ; on
tion proposal, ; Reagan campaign, JCS briefings, ; and McFarlane
; SASC draft bill, ; Schlesinger’s reform initiatives, –, –,
comments/testimony, , ; , ; Packard Commission, ;
Scowcroft’s testimony, ; Symington on Perot, ; and Powell, ; spare
committee proposal, ; Task Force parts acquisition stories, 
512 Index
Eagleton, Thomas F.,  friendly fire incident, Grenada, 

East, John, , , , ,  Furtner, Ralph, 
Eberstadt Committee, –
Effron, Andrew S.,  Gabriel, Charles A., , , , , ,
Eisenhower, Dwight D.: on command 
structure, ; JCS service, –, Gairy, Sir Eric, 
; Packard Commission research, Garrett, H. L., III “Larry,” 
–; and Pentagon labyrinth, ; Gates, Thomas S., Jr., 
reorganization initiatives, , –, Gelb, Les, 
–, , , –, n; General Board (navy), , 
on Truman’s reorganization efforts, General Staff Act of , 
–,  George Washington episode, 
Eliot, George Fielding,  Geraghty, Timothy J., , –, ,
Enterprise, USS,  , –
European Command (EUCOM): antiter- Gerlach, Howard L. “Larry,” , ,
rorism office, –; Jones’s , –
experience, ; Lebanon mission, , Getz, Colleen, , 
, , –; Libya bombing,  Gibbons, Sam, 
European forces and Weinberger story, Gingrich, Newt, –, –, ,
 , –, 
Evans, Hugh C., , ,  Glakas, Tommy, , 
Evans, Rowland, ,  Glenn, John, , , 
Executive Order . See Packard Goldwater, Barry: on Beirut bombing,
Commission ; Blackhawk piloting story, ;
Exon, J. James, ,  briefings on reorganization, –;
characterized, –, , ;
Fallows, James,  conference negotiations, , ;
Far East Command (FECOM), ,  and Eagleton’s amendment, ; on
Fedyszyn, Thomas R.,  Grenada invasion, ; health, –
Feulner, Edwin, Jr., ,  , ; Jones’s letter, ; Lehman’s
Finn, Richard D., Jr. (Rick): Aspin attacks, –, ; letter from
meeting, ; conference negotia- Arizona, –; letter to Packard,
tions/report, , , –, ; ; navy telephone episode, –;
H.R.  recognition ceremony, ; on Nunn partnership, ; paper on
H.R.  memorandum, , ; JCS reorganization, ; photos, , ,
meeting, ; PACOM inquiry, , , , , , ; S.  renaming
; SASC draft bill, ; SASC amendment, –; on SASC staff
hearings, ; SASC report, , report, ; Schemmer relationship,
; Task Force work, , , –; on Stennis meeting, ; on
, –, , , ,  Strategic Homeporting Initiative, ;
Foley, Sylvester R., – Taft’s confirmation hearings, ; on
Foley, Thomas S.,  Task Force retreat, ; on Thurmond,
Forbes, Malcolm,  –; Vessey’s confirmation
Ford, Gerald,  hearing, ; on Vietnam War, –;
Ford Foundation, ,  on Weinberger, ; work habits,
Forrestal, James, , , – –. See also Goldwater/Nunn
Fort A. P. Hill,  partnership; Senate Armed Services
Freedman, Judith,  Committee (Goldwater-led)
Friedersdorf, Max L.,  Goldwater, Peggy, 
Index 513
Goldwater-Nichols Act. See H.R.  Harvard University, 

(Goldwater-Nichols Act) HASC Investigations Subcommittee
Goldwater/Nunn partnership: character- (Nichols-led): agenda decisions, ,
ized, , , –; Crowe meeting, –, ; Barrow’s testimony, ;
–; formation of task force, ; Beirut inquiry, –, –;
H.R.  signing ceremony, –; legislative drafts, –; Meyer’s
Lehman’s attack on, –; letters testimony, –; Moorer’s
to Weinberger, , –, ; testimony, –; Skelton’s role,
McGovern’s attacks, –; media , , ; Taylor’s testimony, –
expectations, –; meeting with ; Vessey’s appearance, –;
JCS, –, ; and Packard Commis- Weinberger’s appearances, , –
sion, , , , –; recogni- , –. See also House Armed
tion ceremony, ; speeches to Services Committee (Price-led)
Congress, –; staffing decisions, HASC Investigations Subcommittee
–; strategy for using SASC staff (White-led): Barrett’s role, , –;
report, –, –; Task Force legislative drafts, –, –;
briefings, –, –. See also witness testimonies, –, . See
Task Force on Defense Organization also House Armed Services Commit-
(Goldwater/Nunn-led) tee (Price-led)
Gonzales, Henry B.,  Hayward, Thomas B., –, , –,
Goodpaster, Andrew J., , , , , , –, , 
 Helm, Robert “Bob,” 
Gorman, Paul F., , , , –, Helms, Jesse, –
–, , –,  Heritage Foundation, –, –
Gramm, Phil: background, ; Lehman’s Hill, Linda, 
plans for, ; Locher meeting, – Hills, Carla A., 
; and McGovern’s antireform Hittle, J. D. “Don,” , , , , –
actions, –, , ; photo, , 
; SASC draft bill, , ; SASC Holcomb, Stasser, 
hearings on staff report, ; Task Holloway, James L., , , , , ,
Force participation, , , , , –, , , 
, , ,  Hoover, Herbert, 
Graves, Howard D., Jr.,  Hopkins, Larry, , –, , 
Grenada invasion, –, –, , House Armed Services Committee
, –, , , n (Aspin-led), , , –
Gulf War, , – House Armed Services Committee (Price-
led): Beirut reports/hearings, –;
Hadley, Arthur T., ,  Jones’s testimony, –, –;
Haig, Alexander,  Nichols’s bill, , –, ; Senate
Hall, David K.,  conference negotiations, –. See
Halsey, William F. “Bull,” –,  also HASC Investigations Subcommit-
Hammer, Michael,  tee (Nichols-led); HASC Investigations
Hamre, John, , ,  Subcommittee (White-led)
Hanks, Robert J.,  House of Representatives: Aspin-led
Hanson, Thor, , ,  legislation, , , ; Goldwater-
Harker, Drew A.,  Nichols conference report, ;
Harrell, John W., Jr.,  Lebanon resolution, –;
Hart, Gary, , , , , – Nichols’s bill, , . See also specific
Hart, Sir Basil Liddell,  bills and House committees
514 Index
H.R.  (Skelton’s), –, ,  Johnson, William S. “Spencer,” , 
H.R.  (Reagan administration’s): and Joint Army-Navy Board, , 
H.R. , –; Moorer’s support, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS): Eisenhower’s
; Taft’s submission letter, –; experience, –, ; historical
Taylor’s criticism, ; and overview, –; internal reports, ,
Weinberger’s initial study request, –, –; Iranian rescue
–, ; Weinberger/Vessey mission, –; Locher’s experience,
meeting with subcommittee, –. ; meeting with Goldwater/Nunn,
See also HASC Investigations Subcom- –; meeting with Nichols, –;
mittee (Nichols-led) Reagan appointments, –, ;
H.R.  (Goldwater-Nichols Act): Syria bombing directives, ; Task
conference negotiations, –; Force study, –; and terrorism
Donley/Lehman/Locher meeting, threat, . See also chairman’s role
–; effectiveness, –; and (JCS); command structure, Pacific
H.R. , ; as JCS reorganization theater; conflict of interest (JCS);
bill, ; objectives, , , – Crowe, William J., Jr. “Bill”; Jones,
; OMB recommendation, –; David; Meyer, Edward C. “Shy”;
signing/recognition ceremony, – staffing structures; Vessey, John W., Jr.
; submission to Reagan, . See Joint Forces Command, 
also H.R.  (Nichols’s); S.  Joint Requirements Oversight Council
H.R.  (Nichols’s), –, –, (JROC), 
–. See also defense authoriza- joint staff. See staffing structures
tion bill () Joint Warfare Capabilities Assessments
H.R.  (Nichols’s), –. See also (JWCAs), 
H.R.  (Goldwater–Nichols Act) joint warfare operations: after
H.R.  (White’s), – Goldwater-Nichols Act, –;
H.R.  (White’s), –, –, , Grenada invasion, –, –,
, , – , , –, , ; Iranian
Hudson Institute, – rescue mission, , –, . See
Humphrey, Gordon, , , ,  also command structure, Pacific
Huntington, Samuel P., , , , theater
–,  Jones, David: Aspen Institute seminar,
; background/working style, –
Ikle, Fred,  ; on Barrett’s book, ; confirma-
Independence, USS, –,  tion hearings, –, –; CSSG
Inman, Bobby R.,  study, –; dismissal threat, –;
International Relations Program HASC hearings, –, –, –
(Rockefeller Foundation),  ; on H.R. , ; initial reform
Iranian rescue mission, , –,  approach, –; on Iranian rescue
Iwo Jima, USS, ,  mission, , ; media coverage, –
, ; on Meyer’s recommendations,
Jackson, Henry M. “Scoop,” –,  ; on Pentagon bureaucracy, –;
Jaskilka, Samuel,  photos, , ; published recommen-
JCS Fellowship Breakfast,  dations, –, –; retirement,
Jennings, Peter,  ; Roosevelt Center project, ;
John F. Kennedy, USS, –,  SASC draft bill, ; SASC hearings,
Johnson, Frank L., , ,  –, –, , ; Task Force
Johnson, George K. “Ken,” ,  retreat, , ; on Vietnam, –,
Johnson, Louis A., – ; and Weinberger, , –, 
Index 515
Jordan, Amos A. “Joe,” Jr., , – ment/operations, , , –,
Joulwan, George A.,  –; naval bombing failures, –
, ; Nichols’s perspective, ,
Kahn, Herman,  –, ; Pentagon opposition,
Kasich, John, , ,  –; security reviews, –;
Kassebaum, Nancy L., ,  Syria bombing episode, –;
Kassing, David,  withdrawal of troops, . See also
Kaufman, Daniel J., ,  Beirut bombing
Keegan, John,  Lehman, John: attacks on Goldwater/
Kelley, P. X.: characterized, –; Nunn, –, –; background/
confirmation hearings, ; on working style, , –, ; and
Goldwater/Nunn draft bill, , –, Beirut bombing, , ; on
–; Grenada invasion, ; chairman’s role after Goldwater-
HASC hearings, , , –; Nichols Act, ; CSIS report, ,
Lebanon mission, –, , , ; CSSG report, –; firing/
; and Lehman, ; photos, , aftermath, –; on Goldwater/
; SASC hearings, –, – Nunn draft bill, –, –;
Kelso, Frank B., II,  Heritage Foundation report, , ;
Kemp, Jack, ,  Hittle’s memorandum, ; and
Kennedy, John F., , ,  Hudson Institute study, –; on
Kennedy, Ted, , , , , , Lebanon bombing accuracy, ; on
 Lebanon command path, ; on Long
Kennedy, USS, –,  Commission report, ; McGovern
Kerwin, Walter T. “Dutch,” ,  relationship, ; Naval War College
Kester, John G., , , , , , conference, ; on Nichols’s bill, ;
,  on OSD bureaucracy, ; Packard
Kimmel, Husband E., – Commission, ; photos, ;
King, Ernest J., , , , ,  response to H.R. , ; and
Kinkaid, Thomas C., – Rogers’s recommendations, , ;
Knox, Frank, , – S.  opposition, ; SASC
Koch, Noel C., – hearings, ; Walker episode, 
Komer, Robert W., , ,  Lehman, Ronald F., , –
Korb, Lawrence J.,  Lemann, Nicholas, 
Korea, command structure, , – LeMay, Curtis E., 
Kotter, John,  Lemnitzer, Lyman L., , 
Kroesen, Frederick,  Levin, Carl, , , , , , ,
Krulak, Victor H. “Brute,” –, , , , 
, , ,  Leyte Gulf battle, –
Kyle, James H.,  Libya bombing, –
Locher, James R., III: conference
Laird, Melvin, , , ,  negotiations, , ; Goldwater/
Lally, John, , –, , , ,  Smith relationship, , –;
LANTCOM and Grenada invasion, – Grenada visit, ; H.R. 
, –, , , –, , recognition ceremony, ; JCS
 meeting with Goldwater/Nunn, –;
Leahy, William D., , , , ,  McGovern relationship, –;
Lebanon mission: command conflicts, meeting with Donley-Lehman, –
–, –; congressional ; PACOM inquiry, , –;
resolution, –; marine deploy- Pentagon experience, ; photos, ,
516 Index
Locher, James R., III: (cont.) McElroy, Neil H., 

; SASC hearings, –; Tower McFarlane, Robert C. “Bud”: acquisition
relationship, , , ; Tower’s commission proposals, –; and
study request, –. See also Defense NSC staff proposals, –, ,
Organization: The Need for Change ; Packard meeting, ; Reagan
(SASC staff report); Senate Armed meetings, , ; reorganization
Services Committee (Goldwater-led); perspective, –; resignation,
Task Force on Defense Organization ; and SASC staff report, , –
(Goldwater/Nunn-led) ; on Vietnam, , ; and
Long, Robert L. J., , , , ,  Weinberger, , –, 
Long Commission, –, , , McGovern, James F.: conference negotia-
–,  tions, , , ; Goldwater’s
Lott, Trent,  “shot,” ; Goldwater’s staffing
Lovett, Robert A.,  decisions, –; Krulak/Tower
Lynch, Thomas C.,  meeting, ; Lehman meeting, ,
Lynn, William J.,  ; photo, ; SASC hearings
schedule, ; and SASC staff report,
MacArthur, Douglas, , –, , –; Task Force opposition, –
 , , ; Task Force retreat, ;
Mackmull, Jack,  working style, –
Mahan, Alfred Thayer, ,  McGrory, Mary, 
Mandate for Leadership: Policy Manage- McKee, Seth J., , 
ment in a Conservative Administration McKinley, William, 
(Heritage Foundation),  McKitrick, Jeffrey S., 
Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the McNamara, Robert S., , , , –
Conservative Revolution (Heritage , n
Foundation),  media coverage: Crowe’s appointment,
marines: Grenada invasion, –; ; CSIS report, –; defense
and HASC hearings testimonies, – budgets, ; Goldwater/Nunn hopes/
; historic reorganization efforts, – speeches, –, ; Jones’s
, –; Iranian rescue mission, recommendations, –; Lehman,
–; Korean conflict, –; –, , –; Packard
Nightmare Range story, –; Commission, ; Pentagon bureau-
Pueblo incident, . See also Barrow, cracy, ; SASC draft bill, ; SASC
Robert H.; Beirut bombing; Kelley, P. X. staff report, , , –; spare
Maritime Strategy (Lehman’s),  parts acquisition, , , –,
Markey, Edward J.,  . See also Armed Forces Journal;
Marsh, John O.,  New York Times; Washington Post
Marshall, George C., , , –, , Mellon, Christopher K., –, ,
, , ,  
Martin, Edward H.,  Merritt, Jack N., 
Matthews, Francis P., – Metcalf, Joseph, III, , , 
Mavroules, Nicholas, , ,  Meyer, Edward C. “Shy”: Aspen Institute
Mayaguez seizure, ,  seminar, ; Beirut bombing, ;
McBride, William V.,  CSSG study, –, , ; HASC
McCain, John,  hearings, , –; Heritage
McCoy, Tidal W., ,  Foundation study, ; on Jones, ;
McDonald, Wesley L., , , , , photos, ; reorganization proposals,
–,  –; Roosevelt Center project, ;
Index 517
SASC hearings, ; SASC report National Security Council (NSC):

briefings, ; on Vessey, ; on Brzezinski’s recommendation, ;
Weinberger, ; Weinberger’s CNO Select Panel report, ;
memorandum, ; West Point Goldwater/Nunn letter to
conference,  Weinberger, –; and H.R. ,
Michaelis, Frederick H. “Mike,” ,  –; Nunn’s comments, ; staff-
Military Command Reorganization Act led reform proposals, –, –
of , – ; Task Force briefing, ; Taylor’s
Miller, James C., III,  recommendation, ; Weinberger’s
Miller, Nathan,  memorandum, , . See also
Miller, Paul David,  McFarlane, Robert C. “Bud”
Millis, Walter,  National Security Decision Directive ,
mission integration: Goldwater/Nunn 
speeches, –; Task Force Naval War College: Leyte Gulf study, ;
briefing, ; and Task Force staff reform conference, –
report,  navy: Afghanistan war, ; Brown’s
Mitchell, Donald J.,  comments, ; Cox Committee, –
Mitchell, William “Billy,”  ; and CSIS study, –; Cuban
Moellering, John,  missile crisis, –; and
Mondale, Walter,  Goldwater/Nunn draft bill, –
Moorer, Thomas H.: on command , ; Grenada invasion, –
structure, ; CSIS service, ; ; and HASC hearings testimonies,
CSIS study, , –; CSSG study, –; historic reorganization efforts,
; on Goldwater-Nichols Act, ; –, –, –; Iranian
HASC testimony, ; “naval pride” rescue mission, –; Lebanon
story, ; SASC hearings, , – mission, , –, –, ;
; Task Force retreat, , ,  Libya bombing, –; resistance to
Moreau, Arthur S., ,  NME implementation, –; and
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick,  SASC hearings testimonies, ; and
Mullins, William H. L. “Moon,” – White’s bill, –. See also com-
Murray, Robert J., , ,  mand structure, Pacific theater;
Murray, Terry,  Lehman, John; Moorer, Thomas H.
MX missile program, budget negotia- NBC Nightly News, 
tions, ,  New Jersey, USS, 
Myatt, James M.,  Newsweek, , , 
New York Post, 
National Defense University, – New York Times: Baldwin’s reporting,
National Journal,  ; Bell’s commentary, ; Crowe’s
National Military Advisory Council, appointment, ; CSIS report, ;
proposed, , – Goldwater/Nunn speeches, ; and
National Military Command Structure Hittle, ; Jones’s article, ; Jones’s
Study (Steadman),  recommendations, ; McFarlane,
National Military Council, proposed,  ; replacement of Jones, ; SASC
National Military Establishment (NME), staff report, ; spare parts acquisi-
, ,  tion, ; Weinberger, 
National Security Act (): Jones’s Nichols, William F. “Bill”: Beirut
testimony, ; Truman’s proposal, – bombing hearings, ; character-
, – ized, –, , ; conference
National Security Agency (NSA),  negotiations, , –, –,
518 Index
Nichols, William F. “Bill” (cont.) Odeen, Philip A., –, , , ,
, ; HASC hearings, –, , , , 
, , –; on HASC working Office of Management and Budget
style, ; JCS breakfast meeting, (OMB), , –
–; Lebanon mission, , , Oglesby, M. B., Jr., 
, ; Lebanon visit, , ; O’Neill, Thomas P. “Tip,” –, ,
legislative drafts, –; and Moorer, 
; photos, , , ; on Reagan Operational Plan  (Grenada), 
administration proposal, ; SASC Operation Eagle Claw (Iran), , –,
report briefings, ; Stelpflug 
relationship, –, ; and Operation El Dorado Canyon (Libya),
Tower’s stalling tactics, –, , –
. See also HASC Investigations Operation Illwind, 
Subcommittee (Nichols-led) Operation Just Cause (Panama), ,
Nightmare Range, command conflicts, 
– Operations Desert Shield/Storm, ,
Nimitz, Chester, , , ,  –
Nixon, Richard M., , , ,  Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada), –
North Korea: Pueblo capture, , – , –, , , –, ,
, , . See also Korea, , n
command structure The Organization and Functions of the JCS
Nott, John,  (Brehm Report), –, , 
Novak, Robert, ,  Organization for National Security
Nunn, Sam: Beirut hearings, ; (Krulak), –
conference negotiations, –; on Organization Issues Panel (Packard
Crowe’s appointment, ; defense of Commission), –
Rogers, ; on Goldwater partner- Owens, Mackubin T., 
ship, , , ; on Goldwater’s Owens, William A., , 
health, –; Grenada invasion,
, , ; on joint warfare Pacific Command (PACOM): creation,
operations, –; and Jones’s –; Locher’s trip, , –;
confirmation hearings, –; on Nightmare Range example, –;
Lehman’s appearance, ; Locher’s and Pueblo incident, , –,
defense of, ; McGovern’s attacks, , ; statistics, . See also
–, ; Nichols’s amendment, command structure, Pacific Theater
–; on Packard Commission, ; Packard, David, –, –, ,
on Pentagon management style, ; , , , 
photos, , , , , , ; Packard Commission: discussions/
Rogers’s testimony, ; Roosevelt research, –; formation/
Center project, ; S.  renaming members, , , –, ,
amendment, –; on SASC staff ; Lehman’s letter, ; meeting
report release, , ; Taft confirma- with Task Force, –; Reagan and,
tion hearings, ; on Task Force , ; report to SASC, ; Task
retreat, ; on Task Force staffing, Force briefing, –; Vessey’s
–; and Tower, , , ; on response, –
Weinberger, , ; working style, Packer, Samuel H., 
–. See also Goldwater/Nunn PACOM. See Pacific Command (PACOM)
partnership; Task Force on Defense Paisley, Melvyn, 
Organization (Goldwater/Nunn-led) Palmer, Bruce, Jr., 
Index 519
Panama, Operation Just Cause, ,  Lebanon statements, ; and
parts acquisition process. See acquisition Packard Commission, , , ,
process , ; response to Weinberger’s
Pasztor, Andy,  recommendations, ; Vessey
Patterson, Robert P., , ,  relationship, –; Weinberger
Pearl Harbor disaster, , –, – relationship, , , , 
 Reagan administration: defense budget,
Pentagon bureaucracy: after Goldwater- –; and Heritage Foundation,
Nichols Act, , –; character- –; H.R. , ; media
ized, – relationship, ; threat to dismiss
Perle, Richard,  Jones, –; Vessey nomination, –
Perry, William J., , , , ,  . See also Grenada invasion;
Pilliod, Charles J., Jr.,  Lebanon mission; Weinberger, Cap
Pines, Burton, ,  Reappraising Defense Organization
Pittsburgh episode, – (Barrett), –, –
Planning, Programming, and Budgeting reorganization efforts, historical
System (PPBS), , , , ,  overview: Carter’s reports, –, ;
Poindexter, John M., , , , , Eisenhower years, –; Kennedy’s
, , , ,  committee, ; Nixon’s panel, ;
Poole, Walter S., n prior to WWII, –; Roosevelt era,
Porter, Bruce D., ,  –, –; Truman years,
Powell, Colin L.: Base Force responsibili- –, –, –
ties, ; and Douglass, ; on Reorganization Plan No.  (Eisenhower’s),
Goldwater-Nichols Act, , , 
; on Grenada invasion, ; on research institution work: Aspen
Lehman, , ; photo, ; Institute seminar, ; CSIS study,
Task Force briefing, , ; on –, , , –, ;
Weinberger, – development of, –; Heritage
Price, Mel, , , , –, , Foundation project, –, –;
,  Hudson Institute report, –;
Ptak, Alan,  Naval War College conference, –
Pueblo capture, , –, ,  ; NDU conferences, –;
Punaro, Arnold, –, , –, Roosevelt Center project, –;
, , , , ,  West Point conference, –
Pustay, John S.,  resource allocation: after Goldwater-
Nichols Act, , –; Crowe’s
Quayle, Dan, , –, , , comment about PACOM, –;
, , ,  Foley’s response to Crowe, ; SASC
staff study, 
Radford, Arthur W., ,  “Revolt of the Admirals,” –
Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force Rhodes, John, 
(RDJTF), –,  Rice, Donald B., , 
Rather, Dan,  Richardson, Elliot L., –, 
Ray, Richard,  Richardson Committee, , 
Reagan, Ronald: acquisition commission Roche, James G., 
proposals, –, –; Crowe Rockefeller, Nelson, –, 
meeting, ; Foley appointment, Rockefeller Foundation, , 
; Grenada, , ; H.R.  Rogers, Bernard W. (Bernie): JCS
signing ceremony, , –; chairman possibility, ; Lebanon
520 Index
Rogers, Bernard W. (Bernie) (cont.) Senate Armed Services Committee

mission, –, , , ; Libya (Goldwater-led): draft bill, –;
bombing, ; SASC hearings, , Goodpaster testimony, ; HASC/
, –; on UNAAF revision,  Aspin relationship, ; House
Rollins, Ed,  conference negotiations, –;
Rooney, James,  Kelley’s appearance, –;
Roosevelt, Franklin D., –, –, , leadership style, –, –,
,  ; markup of draft bill, –,
Roosevelt Center for American Policy –; McBride’s testimony, ;
Studies, – Moorer’s testimony, –; NSSD
Root, Elihu,   directive, ; and Packard
Roth, William V., , –,  Commission, –, ; Pentagon
Rourke, Russell A., , , , ,  letters about draft bill, –;
Rowny, Edward,  photo, ; Rogers’s appearance,
Rumsfeld, Donald H., , ,  –; staff report hearings, –
Rusk, Dean,  ; staff report meetings, –;
Ryan, John D.,  Task Force retreat, , ;
Thurmond as acting chair, –;
S. : administration response, – Vessey’s testimony, ; vote on draft
; conference negotiations, –; bill, –; Weinberger’s appear-
Cropsey/Lehman opposition, ; ance, –; Weinberger’s letter,
preparations for filing, –; –; Wickham’s testimony, .
vote, –. See also H.R.  See also S. ; Task Force on
(Goldwater-Nichols Act) Defense Organization (Goldwater/
Schemmer, Benjamin F., –, –, Nunn-led)
,  Senate Armed Services Committee
Schlesinger, James R.: CSIS report, , (Tower-led): agenda planning, –
–; on JCS conflict of interest, , ; Beirut hearings, –;
; and Jones, , ; SASC Brown’s testimony, –;
hearings, –; Task Force retreat, Brzezinski’s testimony, ; Grenada
, – report, –; hearings on White’s
Schlossberg, Arnold, Jr.,  bill, –, –, –; House
Scholtes, Richard A., , n conference negotiations, –;
Schwarzkopf, H. Norman, –, , Jones’s testimony, –; Krulak’s
, ,  testimony, ; McGovern’s role, –
Scoon, Sir Paul, ,  ; opinion of Jones, ; Schlesinger’s
Scowcroft, Brent, , –, , , testimony, –, ; Weinberger’s
, ,  appearances, –, , , 
secretary of defense. See defense Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
secretary’s role Lebanon hearings, 
Senate: defense authorization bills, – Senge, Peter, 
, –; Goldwater-Nichols con- Senior Conference (U.S. Military
ference report, ; Jones’s confirma- Academy), –
tion hearings, –, –; Lebanon Senior Strategy Advisory Board,
resolution, ; S.  discussion/ proposed, , , 
vote, –; Taft’s confirmation Shalikashvili, John M., , , ,
hearings, ; Weinberger’s confirma- , 
tion hearings, –. See also specific Sharp, U.S. Grant, 
Senate committees Shelton, Henry H., , , 
Index 521
Sherman, Forrest P., ,  administration proposal, –;

Short, Walter C.,  Reagan’s request, –; Rogers’s
Shultz, George, , ,  comments, , ; Schlesinger’s
Skelton, Ike, , –, , , , comments, –; Skelton’s bill, ,
,  ; Task Force discussions, –,
Slessor, Sir John, – –; and Task Force staff report,
Smith, Carl, , , ,  –; Vandiver’s comments, ;
Smith, Gerald J., , , , , , Vessey’s comments, –;
, ,  Weinberger’s comments, , ,
Smith, Hedrick, , ,  ; White’s bill, –. See also
Smith, James C., III, , ,  chairman’s role (JCS)
Smith, Jeffrey H. (Jeff): Aspin meeting, Stark, Harold S., 
; conference report, –, ; Starry, Donn A., , 
Foley relationship, –; and State Department, Lebanon mission,
Goldwater’s health, –; H.R. –
 recognition ceremony, ; JCS Steadman, Richard C., , –
meeting, ; PACOM inquiry, , , Stelpflug, Billy, , 
, ; photo, ; SASC draft bill, Stelpflug, Peggy A., –
; Task Force work, , , , Stelpflug, William J., –
, , , ; on Tower,  Stennis, John, , –, , ,
Smith, William Y., , , – , , , 
Smith Richardson Foundation,  Stewart, Jake W., 
Sokolski, Henry,  Stimson, Henry L., , , 
Sorensen, Theodore,  Strasser, Joseph, 
SOUTHCOM, Gorman’s experience, , Strategic Homeporting Initiative, ,
 , 
Spanish-American War,  strategic planning: after Goldwater-
spare parts acquisition process. See Nichols Act, –; Heritage
acquisition process Foundation report, ; Iranian
special operations, defined, n rescue mission, –; Jones’s
Special Operations Review Group, – comments, ; SASC staff study, 
Special Review Committee (U.S. Army), Strategic Survey Committee (WW II), 
 Strategy and Resource Planning Panel
Spector, Ronald,  (Packard Commission), 
staffing structures: after Goldwater- Stratton, Samuel S., , , , ,
Nichols Act, –, ; Allen’s 
testimony, ; Brehm’s comments, Sullivan, Francis J. “Frank,” , ,
; Brown’s recommendations, , 
; CNO Select Panel report, ; Sullivan, John L., 
conference negotiations, ; Crowe’s Symington, W. Stuart, , 
comments, ; CSIS report, ; Syria bombing episode, –
CSSG study, , , ; Eisenhower’s
recommendations, n; Hanson’s Taft, William H., IV: acquisition commis-
recommendations, ; Heritage sion proposal, ; confirmation
Foundation report, ; Jones’s hearings, –; Donley communi-
comments, –, , –, , cation, ; and H.R. , , ;
; Lehman’s arguments, –; and H.R. , ; Poindexter’s
Moorer’s comments, , ; proposal, ; response to H.R. ,
Pentagon characterized, ; Reagan –; SASC hearings, ; Task
522 Index
Taft, William H., IV (cont.) Toward a More Effective Defense (CSIS

Force briefing, , ; Task Group report), . See also Center for
formation, ; on Weinberger, , Strategic and International Studies
, , ; Weinberger relation- (CSIS)
ship, ,  Towell, Pat, , 
Task Force ,  Tower, John: ambitions for secretary of
Task Force on Defense Organization defense, –, ; Beirut hearings,
(Goldwater/Nunn-led): civilian –, ; characterized, –,
control briefing, ; command ; and Cohen, ; conference
structure briefing, –; congres- negotiations, –; and Goldwater,
sional oversight issue, –; ; Grenada visit, –; on JCS
creation/membership, –, , turnover and reorganization, ;
–; defense secretary issue, Kelley’s confirmation hearings, ;
–; discussion style character- Krulak meetings, , ; on
ized, –, –; DoD decision- Lehman, ; on McFarlane, ;
making processes, ; JCS reorgani- McGovern’s role, –; and
zation briefing, –; McGovern’s Nichols’s bill, –, , –;
opposition strategies, –; photos, , ; and Quayle, –
military department organization ; retirement announcement, ;
briefing, ; Packard Commission SASC hearings, –, –;
meeting, –; reform overview and SASC staff report, ; on
briefing, –; retreat agenda, – Weinberger, –; Weinberger’s
; retreat discussions, –; confirmation hearings, 
strategy for using SASC staff report, Towers, John H., 
, –, –, –, – Train, Harry D., II, , , 
. See also Goldwater/Nunn Trainor, Bernard E. “Mick,” , ,
partnership , 
Taylor, Maxwell D.: HASC testimony, Trost, Carlisle A. H., 
–; and Hittle, ; on H.R. Truman, Harry S., , –, , ,
, –; JCS replacement idea, –, , , 
, ; as Kennedy advisor, ; Tucker, Patrick A., , 
SASC hearings, , ; and Skelton’s Turner, Stansfield, 
bill,  Tuttle, Jerry O., 
terrorism preparedness: Afghanistan
war, ; Lebanon security reviews, Udall, Morris K., 
–, –; marine training, unanimity approach (JCS): CSSG report,
, –; and mission integration, ; Jones’s comments, , ; JROC
. See also Beirut bombing and, ; Task Force discussions, ;
Thayer, Paul, ,  Weinberger’s recommendation, ; in
Theodore Roosevelt, USS,  WWII, 
Thinking About National Security (Brown), The Uncertain Trumpet (Taylor), 
 Unified Action Armed Forces, , ,
think tanks. See research institution 
work unified command. See command
Thornburgh, Richard,  structure
Thurmond, Strom, –, –, , United States episode, 
, –, , , , ,  University of Kentucky, 
Time,  University of Rochester, 
Toth, Robert,  U.S. News & World Report, , 
Index 523
Van Cleave, Michelle,  “wall of the component” and Beirut

Vandegrift, Alexander A., ,  bombing, –
Vandiver, Frank E., ,  Wall Street Journal, , , 
Vannoy, Frank W.,  War Department, historical overview:
Van Riper, Paul K.,  prior to WWII, –; Roosevelt era,
Vaught, James B.,  –; Truman years, –
Vessey, John W., Jr.: and acquisition Warner, John: characterized, ; Foley’s
commission proposals, , ; on confirmation hearings, ; on
Beirut embassy bombing, ; CSSG Goldwater/Nunn leadership, ,
study, ; Grenada invasion, , ; hearings on White’s bill, –;
, ; HASC hearings, , , , photos, , ; Rogers’s testimony,
–, , ; on Lehman, ; –; S. , , ; SASC draft
memorandum on JCS-initiated report, bill, , –, –, ,
–; Nichols’s bill, , ; Night- ; SASC hearings on staff report,
mare Range story, –; nomina- , , , –; and
tion, –; and Packard Commission, Weinberger’s testimony, 
–; Reagan relationship, –; Washington Monthly, –
SASC hearings, , –; on Washington Post: Aspin’s speech, ;
Weinberger, ; Weinberger’s Beirut bombing, ; Crowe’s
memorandum, ; White’s bill, ; appointment, ; Goldwater-Casey
working style, –,  letter, ; and Hittle, ; Jones, ,
vice chairman proposals: Allen’s ; Lehman, , ; SASC staff
comments, ; Brown’s, , ; report, , –; spare parts
CNO Select Panel report, ; CSIS acquisition, , , ; Stratton’s
report, ; CSSG study, –; article, ; Weinberger, , ,
Heritage Foundation report, , ; ; White’s bill, 
Jones’s, ; McFarlane’s, ; Washington Star, 
Nichols’s bill, , ; Packard Washington Times, 
Commission, –, ; Rogers’s, Watkins, James D.: appointment by
; SASC draft bill, ; Skelton’s Reagan, ; characterized, ; CNO
bill, ; Vessey’s comments, ; Select Panel report, –; on
Warner’s amendments, –, Goldwater/Nunn draft bill, ;
; Weinberger’s responses, , , HASC testimony, ; Hudson Institute
; White’s bill, , . See also report, ; JCS breakfast meeting,
chairman’s role (JCS); staffing –; and Lehman, –, ;
structures meeting with Goldwater/Nunn, ;
Vietnam War: Goldwater’s perspective, photos, ; and Rogers’s recommenda-
–; Gorman’s experience, , tions, –
; Jones’s comments, –, ; Weaver, James, 
Krulak’s opinion, ; and Lebanon Weinberger, Cap: acquisition commission
mission, , ; McFarlane’s proposals, , , , –,
comments, ; Nunn’s comments, ; and authorization report/
 questions, ; background/working
Vinson, Carl, , ,  style, , –, –, –,
Vogt, John W.,  ; and Beirut bombing, , ;
Vuono, Carl,  confirmation hearings, –; and
Crowe-Reagan meeting, ; Dole’s
Walker, John,  comment, ; on Goldwater, ;
Wallace, Peter P., , ,  Goldwater/Nunn letter, ; Grenada
524 Index
Weinberger, Cap (cont.) hearings, , ; subcommittee

invasion, , , ; HASC hearings, , –, ; Weinberger’s
appearances, , , –, – responses, , 
; on H.R. , ; on H.R. , Whitehurst, G. William, , , 
, ; Hudson Institute report, ; Wicker, Tom, 
and Jones, –, , ; Lebanon Wickham, John: characterized, ; on
mission, , , , ; and Goldwater-Nichols Act, ; on
Lehman, –, , , ; letter Grenada invasion, ; JCS chair-
to SASC, –; and McFarlane, man possibility, ; meeting with
; media relationship, ; Meyer’s Goldwater/Nunn, , –, –, , ;
comments, ; and Nichols, , ; photos, ; SASC hearings, –
NSC-initiated memoranda about JCS Wilson, Louis H., –, 
reorganization, –, ; Packard Wilson, Pete: on Beirut bombing, ;
Commission, , –, ; characterized, ; Krulak/Tower
Packard’s opinion, ; photos/ meeting, ; Lehman meeting, ,
cartoons, , , , ; on S. ; photo, ; SASC draft bill, ,
, ; SASC hearings, –, ; SASC hearings on staff report,
, –, –; Task Force ; Task Force participation, ,
briefing, –, –; and Taylor, , , , , 
; Tower meeting about authoriza- Wincup, G. Kim, , , , , 
tion bill, ; Tower’s opinion, – Witherspoon, Richard H., 
; on Vessey, , ; White’s bill, Wood, Mary Anne, 
,  Woolsey, R. James, , , , ,
West Point’s Senior Conference, – , 
White, Richard C.: Barrett interview, ; Worth, Cedric R., 
Jones’s testimony, –; legislative
drafts, –, –, , ; SASC Yuspeh, Alan R., –, , , 
Index 525
JAMES R. LOCHER III, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Busi-

ness School, began his career in Washington as an executive trainee in
the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked in the White House,
the Pentagon, and the Senate. During the period covered by this book, he
was a staff member for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Since
then, he has served as an assistant secretary of defense in the first Bush
and the early Clinton administrations. Currently, he works as a consult-
ant and lecturer on defense matters.

Victory On The Potomac - The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies The Pentagon PDF

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Victory On The Potomac - The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies The Pentagon PDF

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

A D VA N C E P R A I S E

“Locher weaves contemporary events into a rich tapestry of insights on the

“Jim Locher gives us his thoroughly researched, well-thought-out, insider’s view

“Generations of historians will consider Jim Locher’s book the authoritative

Military History logo

Texas A&M University Military History Series

James R. Locher III

Foreword by Sen. Sam Nunn

Texas A&M University Press • College Station

The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements

Library of Congress Cataloging-in -Publication Data

Locher, James R., –

List of Illustrations 

Prologue: Turf, Power, Service 

Part 1: The Fog of Defense Organization

Part 2: Drawing Battle Lines

Part 3: Marshaling Forces

. McFarlane Outﬂanks the Pentagon 

Part 4: March to Victory

. Seizing the High Ground 

Epilogue: Uniﬁed at Last 

. Senators Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn 

Passing the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act was one of Con-

lessons. We examined forty years of debate on defense organization in search

Sen. Sam Nunn

Eventually, the Defense Department sponsored my research there, helped gain

ANGLICO Air-Naval Gunﬁre Liaison Company

PACOM Paciﬁc Command

Turf, Power, Service

If the Navy’s welfare is one of the prerequisites to the

nation’s welfare—and I sincerely believe that to be

the case—any step that is not good for the Navy is

not good for the nation.

—Fleet Adm. Ernest J. King, 1945

1. Senators Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn. (©1986, The

2. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in December, 1985 (left to right):

Goldwater rebuﬀed Kelley’s complaint, then asked me to respond to

The chiefs seemed to attack in a pack. Exaggerations and oversimpliﬁca-

When we entered Crowe’s oﬃce, his executive assistant handed me a thick

“You know,” I interjected, “tomorrow morning we’re going to get another

Although most history books glorify our military

accomplishments, a closer examination reveals a

disconcerting pattern: unpreparedness at the start of

a war; initial failures; reorganizing while fighting;

cranking up our industrial base; and ultimately

prevailing by wearing down the enemy—by being

bigger, not smarter.

—Gen. David C. Jones, USAF, 1982

repeatedly weakened the plans of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower to unify

of the executive branch in military aﬀairs, Congress frustrated many reforms

Another invention of necessity reached farther. To ensure an eﬀective

3. Admiral William D. Leahy (seated at head of table) presides at a meeting

but controlling it depended on the president’s personality and bureaucratic

Not surprisingly, Truman advocated the War Department’s point of view.

Truman oﬀered the defense secretary post to Secretary of War Robert P.

4. President Harry S. Truman and General of the Army Dwight D.

National Military Establishment as the Department of Defense, established the

rated the committee’s recommendations into Reorganization Plan No. , which

Europe have diﬃculty communicating because their systems were developed

sympathized with service aspirations. Without presidential leadership, improve-

Everyone admires courage and the greenest garlands

are for those who possess it.